Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It’s created little by little, day by day. The protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character… Heraclitus.

I always say that to be a bad or good person is not a year job. It has decades of accumulated history of certain traits that stick like glue and unraveling it needs at least a year of dedicated effort.
If Unraveling it is that easy-to-upturn, there would not be enough good men around if you believe that the percentage of those good far surpasses those that are evil.

Character Is not what swings or rotates like a fan. No. With age, characters take root, the primary root for that matter.
I just heard one of those early-morning preachers focused on adultery and sins of the fresh for long last week and the manner she was going about it is the same manner other preachers go about such ingrained matters. For one to be a sex addict to the extent of the picture the woman was painting, such behavior is not what you can pick in a month. It’s years or even decades of accumulation that can make a man be running after everything on skirts or drinking anything in any color of a container.

Do you think merely talking to shame for one hour would do anything to turn such people away from their behaviors?
If it did, it’s a miracle of a decade I will be interested to know how it was achieved. A man that has trained himself to lie nonstop for example, it’s highly difficult to preach heaven and hell for one hour and expect him or her to cross over to the other side. Practically impossible. If merely talking about after life and karma can do the work, there would be no need of getting up early to preach the same sermon people had been hearing for decades and seeing the scourge of HIV/Aids and other viral infections on others and still can't help themselves once any girls show them their teeth or laps. A special warrant is needed to arrest the behavior of a man suffering from the sins of the fresh.

I always let people know that for a man to turn from being a bad man or good man within a week or a month is practically impossible. What the person has for three, four, or decades, how can he leave it under a month after hearing one woman preach or educate in whatever way? Appealing or shaming.

Not? easy for a bad man to do good, if he does, I advise you to be alert, and highly on your guard for there must be reason for such behavior from him for that occasion and vice versa for the good man.

Things follow formats. Some certain lasting characteristics are achieved through gradual processes that might last for a year or more. It’s like acquiring an education. If it is that easy, why all the levels from nursery to tertiary? There would have been no need for gradual process.
We would just wait until eighteen or thereabout and then jump into the ring with those that had been at it from nursery level to the university level and save all the time and money. Education is a gradual process and so is picking up behaviors of every kind.

When Heraclitus made that comment, he knows what he was saying. He was probably talking from experience. To cross over from the left side to the Right takes years of dedication.
When you have inculcated and exhibited one characteristic for a long time and people associate you with such character in their psyche, even if magic happens and you were transformed overnight from mass murderer to pontiff, those around will remain skeptical about who you are showing them. Reality as far as they are concerned is that image of you in their psych. For new you to dislodge that takes repetition of behavior and other demeaning things that come with such transition to convince them.

Your words must remain as you pronounce them to whoever, theirs remain as it had always been. Being late for any event or fulfilling promises and doing community and family services must be budgeted to be a long haul to repentance. Your A must with extra effort remain your A. Consistency in positivity and that image you are projecting must not waver for any reason and above all, it is a decision you made with yourself and your spirit and decided to embark on. So, you must be true to yourself and know that people around you are not stupid or desperate. They observe and as humans takes precautions.

If you can't be true to yourself, is it me you will be true to?
People that relapse into what they spent months or years climbing out of will tell you that acquiring good character is a protracted and patient process so those around those embarking on such a process while rendering helping hands in turn is expected to take self protecting moves.

Are you turning a good leaf must also be ready to take insult,scorn and other demeaning things that comes from such moves.