Character Development vs Personal Development

Character Development vs Personal Development

Character development started at home. Our parents taught us that there are traits and values which are good and acceptable in our society. For Tagalogs, they’ve been learning about respect with po and opo and pagmamano.

We learned that family is important. We need to take care of our siblings while they are young and our parents when they get very old.

Character development continued in school. We learned good values through values education. We developed socially acceptable traits in the playground.

Character development refers to the steps taken by our society to ensure that we grow to be good persons. Even in the workplace, there are attempts to develop us into good workers through the WAVE (Work Attitude and Values Enhancement) program.

Just like in literature, a character demonstrates unique values and traits that make him either a hero, a sidekick, or a villain.

We do not need to play a character. Instead, we can decide for ourselves what we want to become. Character development (values, traits, and behaviors) is part of personal development. It does not end in school.

These days, gurus repackaged character development into a sellable name: personal branding.