There are many in the world today that think they can get away with what ever they want. These type of people lack character and integrity in so very many ways. I think all of us can 
name at least 2 people that we deal with every day that has very little character and integrity. My question for you to think about is this, will someone say that one of the people they know with little character and integrity is YOU? This is meant to be thought provoking and a self check of our daily professional and personal relationships.
Having good character and high integrity sets you apart from your peers. In my opinion, we should do all that we can to develop these traits. Why? Because they are infectious. Others see them and want to emulate them and so on.
As adults in college or our chosen profession we should always be honest, treat everyone with respect, do our best at all things and help others do their best. We should also help before help is asked, and over all, just be nice. Think about it. How do you feel or react when someone is nice to you? More than likely you are little bit happier or you feel good. Don’t you want to help others in that way? I think you do and I think many of you already help others and treat others with respect.
Unfortunately we see children lacking in character and integrity (This is excluding our students at the dojo, they are all great individuals who also have great character). There may be a lot of different reasons for this but most of them can be traced back to the way they are being raised. Even if parents have good character and high integrity, the children may not develop those characteristics if the parents do not teach them. That, I think is at the core, parents may not know how to parent correctly or teach character traits. They also want what’s best for their kids, and for them to be happy. But sometimes those desires get in the way of discipline and life lessons. It is all too common that good adults have bad kids. Now 
I am not saying that you have bad kids, but what I am trying to do is encourage you to do a self check like I mentioned earlier. Self check you own character and integrity, then look at your kids. Be honest with yourself, after all if you can’t be honest with yourself, you won’t be honest with others. If there is room for improvement, make it. Hint, there is always room for improvement.
Let’s focus on improving our own character and integrity and then focus on our children’s (if we have them). I know that we can improve, so let’s do it.
