Creeds don’t have to be all about religion. I think you can have one (and should) yourself. It’s something that helps to guide you in life. It’s something you can come back to when you feel you are getting off course. Life happens and it happens fast. Sometimes we forget our true nature. Sometimes we forget that we have a purpose. We get so blinded by life we forget what that purpose is and what really matters to us.
So I thought about this for a long time and right when I was thinking I needed to put pen to paper and formulate a guidebook for where I want to go, I ran into a fraternity’s creed that really struck me. I feel it sums up perfectly the person I aspire to be. I kinda adopted it as my personal creed of sorts. Anyway, I come back to it every once in awhile when I feel like I may be off track in life… and forgetting what really matters to me. I also read it as a reminder when things are going well… to keep myself grounded… I read it often. It’s quoted from the UCLA chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilion fraternity. I feel it can apply to everyone..
” The true gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety and whose self control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.”