Category Archives: character

Do You Swim Naked? – Naked vs Nude #2

It would be a bare-ass lie if I didn’t admit it’s day #2 of Naked vs Nude Week at the NDD.

Do You Swim Naked? - Naked vs Nude #2

If all the pretenses, lies, masks, decorations, and shiny things of your life were stripped away would you be found to have been swimming naked?  Obviously this is a metaphor. It’s not about swimming naked, which is fine and dandy if that’s what you want to do and you don’t scare small children and pelicans.  What it is about is whether or not you have substance when your money, your track record, your resume is stripped away.

Since the quote is by Warren Buffett perhaps a financial example is in order.  Bernie Madoff had all the bling life could bring.  He had the home, reputation, cars, status, resume, business success, wealth and more.  But what he did not have was a good and true foundation in character underneath it all.  That is the ‘naked’ this quote is really talking about. When it all goes south, what remains?

By the way, in regards to our series title, ‘Naked vs Nude’, imagine this quote using the word nude instead of naked. Wouldn’t quite work, would it.

Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman who last skinny dipped in 1996.

Quote by Warren Buffett, who, rumor has it, once skinny dipped with Bill Gates after winning a Bridge Tournament.

>New Year's Resolution: Character Is The Ability

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Buy this on a Coffee Cup. Give it to a friend who loses heart too easily, or someone with teal colored hair.

Day #4 of Resolution Week at The Napkin Dad Daily


In this quote it’s obvious that character = discipline.  


Although I think of myself as a person of good character, I am not a great self-disciplinarian.  I try to focus, to have lists, to have goals and stick to them, to keep moving in one direction for a set amount of time, to plan.  And I achieve those things regularly.  For about a day.  Maybe a week.  Then I forget about it.  Then I come back to it.  Then I forget about it again.  Then something else becomes the priority and if I go back to those earlier tasks it would be because I am distracted from my current ones.


You know how diets sell to the same people again and again? I am sort of that way with list makers and project planners. I am too cheap to actually buy any of them, but I get the free versions and think THIS will be the mechanism by which I will become organized! Only it usually doesn’t stick.  But who knows, this is a NEW year and I am a year older and wiser so why not try all over again, right?


Hope springs eternal!
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily


Quote by Cavett Robert, 1907-1997,  founder of National Speakers Association

>You Cannot Dream Yourself

>See you back tomorrow with a new drawing and quote! Thanks for
indulging me with the vintage napkins while I have been away on
vacation. I hope you have enjoyed seeing the originals as I created
them for my daughters.

I think this is why so many people never change. I know it is why I haven’t
changed nearly as much as I would have liked to over the years. It’s hard
work.

You have to leave your useless and destructive self by the side of
the road without a ride and without a shelter. You can’t go back for him
or her out of pity or loneliness. You have to trudge on without them and
without the comfort and ease they brought to you. You have to go to the
foundry of your soul and sweat and labor until a better fashioned you
emerges. Not an easy thing to do.

That is why most people change only when circumstances throw them into
the foundry through death or pain or a cataclysmic upheaval of some sort.
It’s the trial by fire we all strive to avoid that finally creates in us the character
we want.

>Character is What You Are

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Character

If this is the case, then what it really means is your thoughts are what decide your character, right?
Hmmmm, not necessarily true now that I think about it. Because when you are alone you can
still be taking action. You can do what you said you were going to do, even though no one is
around at the time to see if you are going to do it. So, what it means is character isn’t what you
feel compelled to do because others are watching, judging. It is what you want to do because it is
right and good, promised and meant.

>One Can Acquire

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napkin_12-12-02 - One Can Acquire

So, that must mean character is a social condition of our selves? What element of
character might one gain when in solitude?

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