Character is a word used more frequently than it is understood. Your character is what you do, why you do it, and how you feel about it. Your character is the composite of qualities that describe how and why you will think, feel, and act, under what circumstances.
Your character consists of the aspects of yourself that are your choice. Your character can be thought of as what distinguishes you from someone else in all the ways you could choose to be the same.
To understand and, ultimately, improve your character, you’ll have to be more careful and correct in the boundaries you place between what you can and can’t control than many modern people are. Every attribute you could change through choice forms a part of your character. Very few attributes are completely beyond the reach of your choices.
In addition to conflating personal qualities that can and can’t be changed, many people conflate who they are with what they have. Who you are is not defined by what you have.2 Who you are is completely transferable to any situation, with or without any of your things.3 Your family, your looks, your health, your friends, your reputation, your money, your career, and your hobbies do not define your character. In fact, your character could be defined as what would remain if everything external in your life were taken away,4 or even if life itself was taken away.5 Under this consideration, few people have very much character at all, and what they do have isn’t very good.