What we feel and do without thinking

I am very intrigued by what Dallas Willard wrote in Chapter 8 of his book in Renovation of the Heart. I suppose I've read a lot of things about character over the years and there is an accumulated knowledge that we all share. It has often been quoted that "we are what we do when no one is watching." A related thought is that mentally handicapped people do in public what others only do in private. There is a lot of food for thought as we apply that conventional wisdom to ourselves.

Dallas Willard has a similar but very deep and interesting take on this subject. He says that, "will is not the same thing as character, but character does develop from it, as specific willings become habitual and, to some extent, "automatic." Character is revealed most of all in what we feel and do without thinking."

And then here is the part that really intrigued me, "But to a lesser extent it is revealed in what we repent of after thinking and what we then do as a result of repenting. Thought, feeling, and will give rise to character."

How many times have we heard someone or our own selves say, "I have no regrets." "Or I'm not sorry for what I did."

When we hear other people say these things we often find ourselves observing that if that person could bring themselves to be more objective, they probably should have "regrets" about what they said and did.

For what do you have regrets? What can you do about it?

PS I wrote this post back in March but never published it until now. As usual Dallas Willard helps clarify my thinking about the inner life of people. I've been in a search process, along with others, for a new staff person. I realize after reading this tonight that I am always in a search for "character" in a staff person. I'm not so interested in performance, but character. What does a person do automatically, without external stimulus or motivation? Left to ourselves, what do we do?