Doing what’s right even when it’s a problem, cost to yourself or others.
Sometimes integrity needs to take a back seat to real life, in that sometimes you don’t want to hurt another’s feelings OR you don’t want to endanger yourself or others (emotionally, physically, socially, etc) because the cost is too great.
I feel like integrity is doing the right thing, being on the ‘right’ side of things (not a political but an ethical stance – imagine if it were both?! YOWZA!), and i think sometimes it has a cost, can put a person on the outside or the less popular side. which is strange. you would think that doing the right thing would be the Way to be, but i find its not always. the benefits i think are just that it has more positive effect, is better for more people, as opposed to just the one or few?
My thought is that Integrity has to do with integration; with a lack of duplicity. A properly functioning moral compass inside of us finds consistent and reliable expression in the outer world. One becomes known for doing the right thing even if cost is involved.
A lack of Integrity would be manifest in people never knowing whether we were going to do the right thing or the easy thing. Trusting someone who lacks Integrity is a high-risk proposal.
So I wonder if enough people restoring personal integrity would do something to help restore the public trust in one another? (Something any nation needs to grow and remain strong)
Do you lie to get a job you know you can do (or with help by hiring out of your own pocket to do part of the work) and gain more experience to be able to tackle it as time goes on? Or do you say you haven’t the experience and miss out on the job?
Do you lie and say you don’t have any money coming in to be able to obtain governmental benefit or do you say you’re making $X and the money are going towards bills, thus needing to go to food pantries to be able to eat?
Do you lie to a person who’s mugging you saying “I don’t have any money” to keep what money you have, or do you hand over your wallet without a word?
Do you lie to a potential mate that you have (or don’t) something and if you do (don’t) have it, they wouldn’t be interested in you?
If you’re captured by enemy forces in a time of war, do you rat out your buddy’s location or divulge detailed plans on how your fellow troops are going to attack them?
If you’re in WWII, hiding Jews, do you give up their location if asked?
What I can say is that a lie — whether of commission or omission — has a nasty way of coming back upon you when you can least afford it.
And even those we manage to ” get away with” still work against us internally. One has a secret to hide or protect, often digging us into an even deeper hole of lies. They also actively encouraged us to try to get away with even more the next time.
You are still looking for an exact “how-to” manual, recipe, set of instructions, or scientific equation unto personal “saving”, righteousness and gain.
Not only is the end motive impure, life isn’t a recipe set of instructions or scientific equation.
No matter HOW MUCH you might want to reduce it to one!
“What shall it profit a man to gain [this or that worldly thing or even] the whole wide world yet, lose his soul?” – Jesus
Your questions and examples are off, because your motive and attitude are off.
I do what I must. IF I must. Irrespective. Or if I can, avoid the question altogether, I’m more than .
A person mugging another (or begging for change) has no use of the truth of your financial situation. Neither does the enemy in warfare. Employers don’t care how you get a job done, so long as what they ask you to do gets done. The government doesn’t care what your expenses are, they only care if you qualify for their program(s).
And you forget I simply can’t be bothered with the concept of the soul. You still haven’t provided proof it exists!
Actually not so – or at least not as few / little as you might imagine.
There are animal based studies on compassion that show how it helps the group, to be able to help others in need. Even in humans there’s sociological studies on how it’s socially unproductive to be a total hard-ass. It’s part of living in society.
In terms of love, it’s a chemical reaction. But what we do with it is the crux, as you yourself have pointed out.
It’s not really a boasting point that we’ve become what we dislike in others.
Oh; joy and peace would be off limits for you too. There are few definitive or conclusive scientific studies on them; and certainly no governing equations!
Ditto for courage; grit; persistence . . .
Your current path of worship is systematically cutting you off from all of the good things in life.
i think action is what speaks most. you know? we will trust our neighbours, and our fellow citizens and those we put in charge, when we see respect worthy behaviour and actions. and it doesnt take much of the right stuff, this i know…
But this is in the category of “when others choose to change”.
And one can wait a very long time for this to happen with some!
Be the change you wish to see in society. The easy path is to say, “Nobody else seems to care about personal honor and integrity, so why should I bother?”
As someone aptly observed “It’s a pain in the butt!”. But that is part of the cost of doing what is right over just doing what is easiest.
It is the price the person of integrity and honor is willing to pay; and to persist in paying even when it is not easy.
Doing the right thing and being trustworthy. With that, one must have tact. Know what not to say in sticky situations. “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” Try not to say, “Why no, your fat makes your butt look fat.” Try to be kind.
It’s linked to the aphorism “Truth without love is just brutality”!
Integrity is an act of love. (Consideration for others even at personal cost, and without personal agenda).
(But the question ” Does this make me look fat?” is the most dread expression of Hobson’s choice. What can one say that is both truth, and will not be received in some way as brutal?!)
Perhaps the answer to “Do these pants make my ass look fat?” could be handled best with the example of the saleslady in my favorite clothing store. I said to her, “Look at the way my boyfriend wants me to dress! I am living in jeans and t-shirts like a fat boy.” She looked at my jeans and t-shirts and fat belly. She showed me a little jacket to put on. Then a nice scarf hid the t-shirt neckline. She suggested going to colored jeans, colored t-shirt, light fabric jacket and a scarf and there are zillions of color combinations that do not look like I am dressed like a boy. Instead of saying that I looked plain fat boyish, she dressed what I was wearing up with accessories. I left the store with a couple of the jackets and a pant outfit and felt great about myself. Never once did she lie to me. I feel like any time I am in a fashion funk, I can come to her and dress it up. She tells me the truth. The saleslady has integrity in my book.
I still dress in the jeans and t-shirts because the adventures we have in the desert and dusty Arizona towns do dictate that I dress rugged and ready for whatever the adventure brings.
And honor is the gift a person gives to themselves so they can stand tall with head held high, while others are bowing theirs low and trying to conceal their shame.
Integrity is having the attitude of doing what is morally and ethically right regardless of personal consequence. It is valuable, just as valuable as personal honor, but only to one who has it.
Integrity never takes a back seat. Anyone who would do so has no integrity. They are the worst kind of coward.
Integrity, to me, is an interesting dualism because it relies on our personal behaviour, as it relates to our concern of how we are viewed in moral terms.
You can be true to yourself and yet if your perspective is such that you can accept what might be viewed as immoral to others, your own honestly to self ain’t worth that much.
There is a trinity of sorts at play here, or maybe my habit of seeing things beyond the superficial in hopes that I can experience truth without the use of vocabulary to do it.
Fundamentally, I put clear honesty at the heart of integrity, but all of us have the habit of convincing ourselves that our truth is the only one that counts. People can’t know love when they allow hate into their world view. Similarly, we cannot have integrity when we think lying for the right reasons is acceptable.
I think integrity demands that we do not receive any form of profit in return for our exercising our integrity, other than a personal sense that we have been true to ourselves.
I think Integrity like honor is a gift that we give to ourselves mostly. It is a desire to control duplicity in ourselves; and to keep our egotistical game-playing, on ourselves and other, to an absolute minimum.
Simply put it is choosing to do what is right, over what is easiest at the time.
Can I see the social benefits as extending beyond just the individual. Such a person inspires and fosters trust. A quiet word or two from such a person can outweigh much loud prattling by fools.
I think you are right in saying that it involves differentiating between Truth and just our little “truth” that props us up.
And I think honor and integrity work best when humility is also in play. That means the openness and willingness to admit that what we thought was right may not be, and to make internal adjustments necessary to restore honor and integrity.
34 responses to “What is integrity?”
Doing what’s right even when it’s a problem, cost to yourself or others.
Sometimes integrity needs to take a back seat to real life, in that sometimes you don’t want to hurt another’s feelings OR you don’t want to endanger yourself or others (emotionally, physically, socially, etc) because the cost is too great.
I feel like integrity is doing the right thing, being on the ‘right’ side of things (not a political but an ethical stance – imagine if it were both?! YOWZA!), and i think sometimes it has a cost, can put a person on the outside or the less popular side. which is strange. you would think that doing the right thing would be the Way to be, but i find its not always. the benefits i think are just that it has more positive effect, is better for more people, as opposed to just the one or few?
My thought is that Integrity has to do with integration; with a lack of duplicity. A properly functioning moral compass inside of us finds consistent and reliable expression in the outer world. One becomes known for doing the right thing even if cost is involved.
A lack of Integrity would be manifest in people never knowing whether we were going to do the right thing or the easy thing. Trusting someone who lacks Integrity is a high-risk proposal.
So I wonder if enough people restoring personal integrity would do something to help restore the public trust in one another? (Something any nation needs to grow and remain strong)
If at day’s end no one is harmed by it, where is the harm?
How deep do you think our awareness and discernment needs to go to assert that no harm is done to anyone?
Certainly farther than just our own feelings and thoughts and emotions, yes?
Examples:
Do you lie to get a job you know you can do (or with help by hiring out of your own pocket to do part of the work) and gain more experience to be able to tackle it as time goes on? Or do you say you haven’t the experience and miss out on the job?
Do you lie and say you don’t have any money coming in to be able to obtain governmental benefit or do you say you’re making $X and the money are going towards bills, thus needing to go to food pantries to be able to eat?
Do you lie to a person who’s mugging you saying “I don’t have any money” to keep what money you have, or do you hand over your wallet without a word?
Do you lie to a potential mate that you have (or don’t) something and if you do (don’t) have it, they wouldn’t be interested in you?
If you’re captured by enemy forces in a time of war, do you rat out your buddy’s location or divulge detailed plans on how your fellow troops are going to attack them?
If you’re in WWII, hiding Jews, do you give up their location if asked?
I cannot say. Do YOU??
What I can say is that a lie — whether of commission or omission — has a nasty way of coming back upon you when you can least afford it.
And even those we manage to ” get away with” still work against us internally. One has a secret to hide or protect, often digging us into an even deeper hole of lies. They also actively encouraged us to try to get away with even more the next time.
You are still looking for an exact “how-to” manual, recipe, set of instructions, or scientific equation unto personal “saving”, righteousness and gain.
Not only is the end motive impure, life isn’t a recipe set of instructions or scientific equation.
No matter HOW MUCH you might want to reduce it to one!
“What shall it profit a man to gain [this or that worldly thing or even] the whole wide world yet, lose his soul?” – Jesus
Your questions and examples are off, because your motive and attitude are off.
I do what I must. IF I must. Irrespective. Or if I can, avoid the question altogether, I’m more than .
A person mugging another (or begging for change) has no use of the truth of your financial situation. Neither does the enemy in warfare. Employers don’t care how you get a job done, so long as what they ask you to do gets done. The government doesn’t care what your expenses are, they only care if you qualify for their program(s).
And you forget I simply can’t be bothered with the concept of the soul. You still haven’t provided proof it exists!
The question then is if someone of relaxed morals is your justification for relaxing your morals?
You also will not find a scientific equation for love compassion mercy consideration or creativity.
You’d better abandon these as well.
Actually not so – or at least not as few / little as you might imagine.
There are animal based studies on compassion that show how it helps the group, to be able to help others in need. Even in humans there’s sociological studies on how it’s socially unproductive to be a total hard-ass. It’s part of living in society.
In terms of love, it’s a chemical reaction. But what we do with it is the crux, as you yourself have pointed out.
Science understands aspects of these things after they have been triggered by measuring physical response.
But it does not have any equation that gives them control and mastery over them.
And you can add things like grit integrity and honor to that list of trash as well; because they are too slippery for science to get a hold on.
You exclude a lot of things just because there is no controlling equation or definitive study!
Watch the cherry-picking and flip-flopping!
Unlike you i have absolutely no problem being a hypocrite!
It’s not really a boasting point that we’ve become what we dislike in others.
Oh; joy and peace would be off limits for you too. There are few definitive or conclusive scientific studies on them; and certainly no governing equations!
Ditto for courage; grit; persistence . . .
Your current path of worship is systematically cutting you off from all of the good things in life.
My point is exactly that I can pick and choose because the accusation that i am doing so means nothing to me.
Something is actively conditioning you to see observation, as accusation.
You’re arguing semantics
@Jear77
Huge difference between an observation and an accusation. If you cannot see that perhaps the semantics are arguing you?
What’s your solution? To stop making all observations lest internal wars of semantics turn them into accusations?
Here’s your island; there’s mine.
Disassociate!
i think action is what speaks most. you know? we will trust our neighbours, and our fellow citizens and those we put in charge, when we see respect worthy behaviour and actions. and it doesnt take much of the right stuff, this i know…
But this is in the category of “when others choose to change”.
And one can wait a very long time for this to happen with some!
Be the change you wish to see in society. The easy path is to say, “Nobody else seems to care about personal honor and integrity, so why should I bother?”
As someone aptly observed “It’s a pain in the butt!”. But that is part of the cost of doing what is right over just doing what is easiest.
It is the price the person of integrity and honor is willing to pay; and to persist in paying even when it is not easy.
Doing the right thing and being trustworthy. With that, one must have tact. Know what not to say in sticky situations. “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” Try not to say, “Why no, your fat makes your butt look fat.” Try to be kind.
It’s linked to the aphorism “Truth without love is just brutality”!
Integrity is an act of love. (Consideration for others even at personal cost, and without personal agenda).
(But the question ” Does this make me look fat?” is the most dread expression of Hobson’s choice. What can one say that is both truth, and will not be received in some way as brutal?!)
Perhaps the answer to “Do these pants make my ass look fat?” could be handled best with the example of the saleslady in my favorite clothing store. I said to her, “Look at the way my boyfriend wants me to dress! I am living in jeans and t-shirts like a fat boy.” She looked at my jeans and t-shirts and fat belly. She showed me a little jacket to put on. Then a nice scarf hid the t-shirt neckline. She suggested going to colored jeans, colored t-shirt, light fabric jacket and a scarf and there are zillions of color combinations that do not look like I am dressed like a boy. Instead of saying that I looked plain fat boyish, she dressed what I was wearing up with accessories. I left the store with a couple of the jackets and a pant outfit and felt great about myself. Never once did she lie to me. I feel like any time I am in a fashion funk, I can come to her and dress it up. She tells me the truth. The saleslady has integrity in my book.
I still dress in the jeans and t-shirts because the adventures we have in the desert and dusty Arizona towns do dictate that I dress rugged and ready for whatever the adventure brings.
But women seem to delight in shanghaiing men with this question!
Our idea of stylish accessorizing is putting chrome hubcaps on the lawn tractor or hanging truck-nuts on the back of our rig!
The similarities are what bring and bind us together. The differences are what makes us strong.
And gives us ample fodder for humor!
Integrity is honoring your values. It is being in congruence wherein what you say matches what you do.
Valuable? Yes, very much so.
Costs- sometimes having to do the hard thing instead of the easy thing.
Benefits-peace of mind, honor.
And honor is the gift a person gives to themselves so they can stand tall with head held high, while others are bowing theirs low and trying to conceal their shame.
It’s a pain in the ass.
It can be.
But so too can raising your children properly or saving for a new roof!
The benefit comes over time.
(And the cost of not doing it is magnified over time)
Integrity is having the attitude of doing what is morally and ethically right regardless of personal consequence. It is valuable, just as valuable as personal honor, but only to one who has it.
Integrity never takes a back seat. Anyone who would do so has no integrity. They are the worst kind of coward.
Integrity, to me, is an interesting dualism because it relies on our personal behaviour, as it relates to our concern of how we are viewed in moral terms.
You can be true to yourself and yet if your perspective is such that you can accept what might be viewed as immoral to others, your own honestly to self ain’t worth that much.
There is a trinity of sorts at play here, or maybe my habit of seeing things beyond the superficial in hopes that I can experience truth without the use of vocabulary to do it.
Fundamentally, I put clear honesty at the heart of integrity, but all of us have the habit of convincing ourselves that our truth is the only one that counts. People can’t know love when they allow hate into their world view. Similarly, we cannot have integrity when we think lying for the right reasons is acceptable.
I think integrity demands that we do not receive any form of profit in return for our exercising our integrity, other than a personal sense that we have been true to ourselves.
I think Integrity like honor is a gift that we give to ourselves mostly. It is a desire to control duplicity in ourselves; and to keep our egotistical game-playing, on ourselves and other, to an absolute minimum.
Simply put it is choosing to do what is right, over what is easiest at the time.
Can I see the social benefits as extending beyond just the individual. Such a person inspires and fosters trust. A quiet word or two from such a person can outweigh much loud prattling by fools.
I think you are right in saying that it involves differentiating between Truth and just our little “truth” that props us up.
And I think honor and integrity work best when humility is also in play. That means the openness and willingness to admit that what we thought was right may not be, and to make internal adjustments necessary to restore honor and integrity.
I think so, I certainly do not think you do, lol!!
I think you have the integrity of a frog.
And worse.
LOL.
@Lucifer Rising
Thank you for confirming the power of what I’ve shared.