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The world would be better off if people tried to become better.

And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off.

For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off.

But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off.

These words, written by Peter Maurin, appeared in Catholic Worker in 1996. In the simplest of language that is filled with wisdom, the author offers us two contrasting snapshots of a focused life. The two images offer dramatic choices of where an individual points the lens of their attentions daily.

When we focus our lens of daily living on becoming better off, we pay attention to getting. In contrast, when our lens is pointed at becoming better, we ultimately discover a life of giving.

It's not accurate to contrast getting and giving in the stark images of bad and good. Just as breathing requires inhaling and exhaling; just as a day provides the contrasts of light and darkness, so does getting and giving provide the polarities of life's ongoing pendulum.

But Maurin's words do offer a choice: Will our attentions be fixated on getting, acquiring and achieving or will our attentions move freely toward giving, serving and helping?

Teachers, parents and grandparents can offer important counsel to young people on becoming kids of character sharing pointed actions that give, serve and help the kids they love experience life values such as personal responsibility, respect for others, honesty to self and others. These values are significant foundations for a life that does become better and, in turn, helps others do the same.

Certainly we all have daily opportunities to champion becoming a better person. Two thousand years ago Marcus Aurelius wrote, "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." Helping our children become better human beings is a timeless gift we can give to develop kids of character.