True Integrity
by Bob Harvey, President/CEO
Integrity is so often practiced that its real meaning is often skewed. People talk ethics and integrity, yet often, their actions speak a different story. Now, one would have to delve quite deeply into religious context and the origin of mankind to fully and truly understand how we so often speak of integrity and ethics, yet fall so disappointedly short in our own actions.
Integrity is about doing the right thing in each interaction that we have. It is often faithless and occurs without fanfare. Integrity is a silent application in action of doing the right thing. It is not hard to do on an interaction-by-interaction basis, if:
- It is important enough for you to do it.
- The outcome of doing life's business with true integrity is so desired.
On the other hand, situational ethics and integrity plagues us all. It is the corner cut here and the, "it doesn't really matter," there that cost us dearly in our pursuit of integrity. The problem is compounded by our own selfish nature and fear of facing a difficult issue head on. Sometimes doing this shows our weakness. And for goodness sake, we don't want anyone to see us "weak." So what happens? We maintain our personal strength and do little things that seemingly do not matter. The next interaction we have, we practice true integrity and so on and so forth, back and forth we go…
Situational ethics often manifest itself in events when it is particularly difficult to face what is real, and subsequently, what is right, head on. When we fail true integrity and its higher calling for all of our self effacing, contrived, and good reason we numb our senses and ability to fulfill true integrity in all of our interactions. It becomes, "okay" to do it most of the time. Painfully, our human lack of self awareness, further exacerbates this problem. It just doesn't bother us because we are "unaware" of our situational ethics practice and move onward with this as acceptable practice. Lastly, we are rarely challenged in this thinking because most people truly "suffer" from this silent malady.
So what can we do about this? How can we change everyone's integrity or even our own to practice true integrity?
It starts with the moment we are awakened to live our day. We must use our subtle inside voice to ask, "Am I doing the right thing in this situation?" If it seems wrong in any way, then ask, "Does this violate the higher code of ethics and integrity that I desire to stand for?" If there is still a question, then is likely best to not do what you were about to do...that's it! A simple, subconscious reasoning that is permeated by true integrity. Then, we move on to the next interaction with the same application. Over and over again, we practice this until situational ethics becomes an aberration. Then, we can claim to understand, true integrity and the at times painful practice that it requires.
