Strength Of Character.

Strength of character. It's a great thing to have. Sadly it seemed to be lacking in my immediate forebears. You notice I use the word forebears? I did that because I didn't really want to say parents, but who am I kidding? I'm not casting blame. We are what we are when we are, if that makes any sense? I lacked it in my younger days, especially my teens. Lacking any strength of character was perhaps a reason why I was in trouble so often. But hey I had other issues to deal with. Not that I was too aware of them at the time, consciously at least, and I certainly wasn't into soul searching. That came later.

Looking back, I realise that my climb back to self respect came mostly in the shape of two particular probation officers. I shall tell you their names, because they were good men: Mr Record and Mr Garland. They saw some good in me. I am grateful for that. It didn't happen overnight though. There were quite a few lows, and brushes with authority before I finally came to some kind of agreement with myself and realised the futility and error of my ways. Not that I'm a perfect example of how to live one's life of course. I still have the occasional aberration. But I do try my best. I suspect I have developed a degree of character, and though I say so myself, it does have some strength to it.

My extremely handsome son George has lately displayed a strength of character that I lacked at his age. He is moving out of his digs at university this week and into new ones. He got on well with his flatmates but he disagreed with them on the subject of drug taking. EHS is vehemently against them. I am not going into details about this. It would serve no purpose. He decided he couldn't stay there. He told his flatmates why he was leaving and they understood. It makes me so proud that he stood by his principles. He showed strength of character.

EHS George's mother has strength of character. He must have got it from her.

What would I have done in those circumstances when I was a similar age? I suspect you probably know the answer to that.



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