A_matter_of_integrity

Does it really matter if you occasionally tell a useful lie? Or bully people who have less power than you do? Should you feel disturbed if you blame someone else for your failings? Or if it becomes expedient to deny domething you know you did or said?

These may not nbe the questions that wake you up at three in themorning. Yet to a considerable extent they affect us in virtually every aspect of our lives. They challenge ourintegrity: that "sense of ourselves" as an integrated, emotionally mature person whom outhers can trust - and who we ourseves can also trust at least to know right from wrong and to act accordingly. (No need to get too avstract here! "Right" means doing what will benefit others as well as yourself. "Wrong" means deceiving otgers or causing any unnecessary distress.)

Integrity send out ripples of confidence that go way beyond your personal realtionships. It has immediate, positive effects emotionally, psychologically and morally.

A secure society depends utterly for its safety on the majority of people acting with inttegrity. Not long ago, to be known as a person of integrity was vital to self-respect. An attact on someone's integrity was like a body blow, suggesting a fatal split between values and behavior.

Integrity itself arises from the value that you place on yourself - and on the behavior that expresses who you are. (It is not true that someone is "only as good as their word": they are only as good as their choices and actons.) Integrity, in fact, aligns words with behaviours or actions, and intentions with outcome. In a powerful sense, it is integrating: bringing an inner stability that is as beneficial for you as for anyone with whom you come in contact. Integrity gives you a vital sense of continuity within your own life/ It lets you know when you have done something wrong so that you can make amends.

Integrity pushes yu to identify basic social values and to live by them. It can even free you to look for the good in others and respond to that, rather than looking for weaknesses and ways to exploit them.

Adam smith, the grand old man of economics, suggested that every public transaction is dependent on integrity: "The spirit of win-win, or of the Golden Rule, is the spirit of morality," he said.

Trust is obviously the grund upon which integrity flourishes. Trusting other people, you can be yourself with them. You have no need to fear being controlled by them. Life becomes less of a battle, more of an adventure. Wherever yu stand, you are on the winning side. Your interactions with others cm be transparent. Trusting and feeling trusted, it would make no sense to abuse that trust through lies, deceit, bullying or humiliating - all behaviors that starkly advertise an absence of the self-respect and respect for others that integrity bestows.

In the publive context, integrity has had quite a bashing. It gets lip-servise, but what often dominates is gross expediency. In that context it ceases to be shocking when a political party leader seeks power by making promises he has no intention of keeping. Or repudiates promises without wmbarrassment or shame. Any loss of integrity on the public stage affects all our alives. Cynisicm is the enemy of integrity. It brings life a view that people cannot be trusted even with their own destiny. Fromthat place, others' interests come a poor second to your own. And winning will always justify any promise if it gets you what you want.

Integrity takes you to a different place. It lets you grow up. And lets you see how you can positvely influence other people as "opportunities", it frees you to behave well - whatever your circumstances and whoever you are with.