Character is destiny.

     You know, I believe it. All this scampering around to make money. 'Look at me! Look at me! Please buy my product!' I'd rather be poor than live that way. I'm just interested in getting all I can out of myself.

     Some years back I was in a creative writing seminar and the teacher said: "If there's something wrong with your characters, there's something wrong with your character."
     We students just all kind of shook our heads, but then little by little what the instructor was getting at it began to dawn on us. In other words, my faulty character as a human being was producing my faulty characters in my story.
    And so if I want better characters in my stories what's the solution? Become a better person. As I grow in character as a person, so will my characters.
    And regarding all this endless money chasing. Listen to what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to people focusing excessively on making money:
 
For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will  liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's?

     What did Emerson say? The 'progress of his character' would liquidate ALL his debts. I BELIEVE THAT. If you live the right way, do right by people, give your life all you've got, well, friend, you can't help but succeed. Character is destiny. Character is everything.