Character

Some things I read make an impact.  “You are not taking your career into eternity, but you are taking your character.”  Now that I am retired one career is over, but I reckon I still have one by another name.
Wherever I have been, and whatever I have done, I have endeavoured to do my job and interact with people n such a way as I would be invited back.  I cannot say I was always successful in working at my job when I was there to work at my job.  But thankfully overwhelmingly I was.  I do not think there is a place I would not be welcome back.
I do remember one place I worked where I was not impressed.  I was impressed with someone’s goals, but I did have trouble with them using their work time to make a multitude of bookings for something they had on out of work time.  Really that says more to me about character than career.
But then I really do feel it is about how I do.  How others do is their journey.  I can learn but I will not set myself up as the standard to go by.  That would be a bridge that is sure to give way.
I know I do go on about it, but it really is my thing.  To me it matters not if I am rich and famous.  What matters to me is whatever I am I am the best I can be.  To me the principled pauper has no more going for them than the rich and powerful who plays fast and loose with the truth.
While I have no intention of taking sides, I have seen a bit of this with the Boris Johnson saga.  I was amazed how often the word integrity was mentioned.  While I do not think integrity by itself will get us the eternity we would like, it is to me a quality displayed.
I wholeheartedly think there is a role for rich or poor, known or unknown.  Particularly in the light that it is character, not career, that matters most.
I am not one to dismiss careers as unimportant.  They totally are.  Where a person is a square peg in a round hole it is important to find a square hole.  But when someone does, and they perform the task well, they can discover their bent for life.  Some are into what I am not, and I am into what others are not.  All roles are needed, and when working together good things for everyone can happen.
But the bottom line for me is character.  If I do not have that, everyone can get hurt, but where I have it, beyond the sky is the limit.