Character, Pictured

Here is a picture that has been making the rounds on LinkedIn:

And I get it. Reputation, being simply other people's impressions of you, isn't as important as the real person that you are, or strive to be.

But whenever I see that picture, I'm reminded of this one:

Copyright Matthew Lee High. https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthigh/2982698709

George Johnson mistakenly earned a reputation as a horse thief with the people of Tombstone, Arizona. So they hanged him. Later, they learned that he'd purchased the horse, in good faith, from the actual thief. And so the poetic grave marker. I suspect that it brought the late Mister Johnson scant comfort.

So if it's all the same to you, I think that I will be just as concerned with my reputation as I am with my character. Because while it is true that it better to actually be a good person than simply to be thought one, it's better to be thought a good person than to be thought a bad one.