The Imago Needs a Good Story. Character Can Withstand a True One.

We usually understand character through a familiar collection of desirable qualities. A person of good character is honest, generous, patient, dependable, and willing to do what is right. We admire these qualities in others and may spend much of our lives attempting to cultivate them in ourselves. Yet there is something difficult about the way we recognize character. Two people may perform exactly the same good deed while wanting very different things from it. Someone offers help because another person needs assistance. Someone else provides the same assistance because being needed has become essential to how they understand themselves. The behavior may be nearly identical, while the relationship it creates becomes remarkably different.

The sixth Step of Alcoholics Anonymous concerns becoming ready to have defects of character removed. The language naturally invites us to imagine that recovery requires identifying bad qualities and replacing them with good ones. We remove dishonesty and become honest, eliminate selfishness and become generous, or overcome anger and become peaceful. But this can become another version of the project we have been pursuing all along. We imagine the person we ought to be and begin arranging ourselves around that image, believing that eventually our shortcomings will disappear and our character will be complete.

Perhaps character is something different from the successful display of desirable qualities.

Our understanding of ourselves develops through relationships in which certain ways of being seem especially lovable or admirable. A person may become the responsible one because others have always relied upon them. Another may become the agreeable one because disagreement once threatened affection. Someone else may have learned that generosity brings recognition. These identities can become meaningful parts of our lives, but they can also become demanding. We may find ourselves behaving generously when we are exhausted, agreeing when we are resentful, or helping when our assistance is no longer wanted. The image of goodness begins requiring us to behave in ways that make the relationship less honest.

This is one reason a seemingly admirable act can carry a hidden cost. A person repeatedly sacrifices for their spouse while privately expecting gratitude. Another takes responsibility for a friend's difficulties because they cannot tolerate the possibility of becoming unnecessary. Someone remains silent during a disagreement because they want to preserve their identity as peaceful, although their silence eventually becomes a form of punishment. We might begin asking not only what someone does, but how they are participating in the relationship through what they do.

Character may become more visible when our preferred image fails. Someone tells us that our helpfulness has felt controlling. We discover envy toward a person we sincerely admire. We become angry with someone we love or recognize selfishness within an act we considered generous. These discoveries are uncomfortable because they disturb the familiar story we tell about ourselves. But they do not require us to deny the feeling or conclude that it represents the entirety of who we are.

We can be generous and discover that we expected something in return. We can love someone and recognize a wish to hurt them. We can be honest while noticing how carefully we arrange our explanations to preserve an acceptable picture of ourselves. The discovery becomes useful when it can be considered rather than immediately defended against. We may begin learning something about how we are living instead of spending all our energy deciding whether we are good.

This also changes how we understand spiritual growth. We can become so attached to the image of being humble, forgiving, or spiritually mature that these qualities become another form of self-promotion. Someone may pride themselves on never becoming angry while quietly resenting everyone around them. Another may forgive repeatedly because they cannot tolerate the possibility of appearing unkind. The outward behavior can resemble virtue while the relationship remains governed by fear, obligation, or the need for recognition.

A different understanding of character asks whether we can remain present when our familiar picture has been disturbed. Can we hear something difficult without immediately defending ourselves? Can we acknowledge harm without collapsing into shame? Can we recognize a desire without requiring it to determine our behavior? These capacities become visible through repeated encounters with other people, particularly when our intentions and their experiences do not agree.

Character is not necessarily dramatic. It may involve returning to an uncomfortable conversation, keeping a promise when nobody is watching, or admitting that our helpfulness has created an obligation another person never wanted. It becomes trustworthy through the way we continue living rather than through the qualities we claim to possess. We may become less interested in appearing dependable and more willing to do the ordinary things upon which dependability rests.

The imago needs a good story because it requires a recognizable picture of who we are. Character can withstand a true one because it does not need every contradiction to be resolved before we can act responsibly. We may remain imperfect, sometimes selfish, sometimes generous, and still become people whose presence others can increasingly trust. Perhaps recovery involves less effort to display a better character and more willingness to live with character when there is no image left to defend.