Life Training: How to keep past being overshadowed

We were all warriors in the battlefield called life, struggling to find our own place under the sun, to have our own distinct individuality and personal growth. We live in a world where only the fittest specie survives. If there is one thing that we could arm ourselves with and which we could claim our own, it is our own name, a title that gives entity to our being.

Socrates in his inspiring quote said, "Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly possess.” For Gary Eby, “Your reputation is like a shadow, sometimes it follows you…sometimes it precedes you, but it is always with you.” This has been a self awareness that have helped Gary in  personal goal setting.

Your name and your reputation become synonymous.  Your reputation is mirrored on how people think about you. Therefore, it is so powerful to know the value of a good name. It’s like a fire, once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but once you extinguish it, it is extremely difficult to rekindle it again same as through like glass once broken you can never put the pieces back again.

 An Ancient Proverb motivates us that no price can equate the value of a good name.

Its favor is better than silver and gold, if gold is a treasure that people have spent their entire lives looking for, and then a good name is to be treasured. 

My mother always dreamt of having her first born a girl and that she would name her Darlene.  The excitement was incomparable as the big day go near. She just knew it was a girl!  When the baby arrived ... you guessed it.  It was my big brother, Bill.

Three years later ... after nine months of anticipation ... the stork came again! He must have come to the wrong house ... because Darlene had to be named ... James Albert Eby! Oh, Brother!

Of course Mama loved these boys ... but the dream of having a baby girl remains. Now, three years later .. “this” time would be “the” time.  Only girl clothes were brought.  Darlene is coming!  On April 24th, in the wee hours of the morning the long wait finally ends... The baby was delivered.  I was a boy! They just looked at me in disbelief. What a greatest surprise in my parents' life.   I could hear they bounced around a few names and no one agreed.  They had just given no thought to a boy’s name! Suggestions were raised, “Ralph” after Dad's name while Mama,  “Theawpholis!" not like in the Bible rather like in “that’s the awfulest looking kid I’ve ever seen!”  Thank God, they finally decided and I got my name, “Gary.” 

There have been people who disliked their name so badly that they changed it! Nobody knows who Ralph Lifshitz is? He changed his name to Ralph Lauren. Remember Leonard Slye? He became Roy Rogers. Who knows Marion Morrison? Is the name a little feminine for the guy who would later become the personification of manhood? Yes, he was John Wayne.

Luther D. Knox, a candidate in the Louisiana gubernatorial primary had his name legally changed to “None of the  Above”.   He did not get a chance. The Judge threw out his application. It’s far easier to change the name ... the vowels and consonants than it is to change your reputation.

Henry Ford once said ..."You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do."

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary says that reputation is defined “the character commonly imputed to a person  ... A good name; a place in public esteem." When people speak to your face they may have one opinion, but what people say behind your back is really your reputation. Your reputation can be assessed by those people who know you, for the most part, the people you have worked for, your family members, near and far, your business associates and your church acquaintances. A good reputation can be judged in this one question. If you were arrested today for being a man or woman of integrity ... would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Identity theft has been the fastest growing crime in the world nowadays. It’s now a multi-billion dollar crime industry. It is not just your identity that is at stake or your name it’s your reputation that they want.  Your credit reputation, your banking reputation, your buying reputation, it is your credibility that they are banking on!  They don’t care about ruining your good reputation.

Yes ... Sometimes a person’s name can be ruined by his enemies, but usually it is ruined by either a person’s lack of character or his lack of integrity. 

A lack of integrity will catch up to you!  Like the story about a cigar smoker who bought several ­

hundred expensive cigars and then had them insured against fire. After he'd smoked them all, he filed a claim, pointing out that the cigars had been, in fact, destroyed by fire. The insurance company refused to pay, and the man sued. A judge ruled that because the insurance company had agreed to insure the cigars against fire, it was legally responsible. The company had no choice but to pay the claim. Then, when the man accepted the money, the company had him arrested for arson.  What is it they say?  “Be sure your sins will find you out?”

It all boils down to a good reputation. Still, it’s the reputation behind the name! It serves as a spiritual inspiration that is powerful! We have got to protect our name not only from the identity thieves but from our own selves as well!

Let's build a good name, good reputation, and good life.