I had to look up €integrity€ before I could write about it. I certainly connected it with honesty. I had a sense that people with integrity were people I could trust. We've probably all heard people say, €Integrity is fundamental to who I am,€ or €Without integrity, who are you?€ But what exactly does that mean?
When I looked integrity up in the dictionary, it was defined as: €completeness, wholeness, moral soundness, uprightness.€ A site on the internet was selling tee shirts that said, €Integrity is the opposite of manipulation.€ And I thought to myself, okay, I get it now. Integrity's a lot more than honesty and trustworthiness, although certainly honesty is part of it and we do trust people who have integrity.
Integrity is the characteristic of being integrated, of all of our lives reflecting a core SELF. Honesty is involved €" that is, knowing ourselves and living out who we are, rather than dishonestly €faking it€ or lying. And we are more inclined to trust people with integrity because we see that their behavior is consistent over time and seems to be guided by some set of beliefs or habits. They seem to have made a decision about where their moral center is, about who they are, about who they feel called to be, about who they want to be. And they live out those decisions. And so, once we observe people with integrity behaving from that moral center, we can trust that they will continue to do so.
The tee shirt about manipulation makes sense too: manipulation implies being different to different people, splitting ourselves apart in order to get what we want from others. If we do this, it becomes unclear where our moral center lies. People will become unclear about who we will be next, who our SELF is. Without integrity, we will be whoever we have to be in order to get what we want or need.
Where does a lack of integrity come from? I find that environments in which people are not trustworthy trigger my impulse to manipulate, or to say whatever is necessary to get what I need. You see, if family members or coworkers or a boss have repeatedly demonstrated that who I am and what my needs or wants are don't matter, if they have been inconsistent and dishonest or downright hurtful, then I may have learned that acting in integrity only opens my true self up to attack and damage. And so I may hide who I am and try to figure out the best way to get what I need.
Whew! I feel exhausted just writing about this. What a lot of energy is wasted in figuring out how to manipulate situations!! I wish I could say that I had not felt so self-protective in my work life! But consider what it would be like to have grown up surrounded by such an unsafe environment, and to, as a result, have such manipulation hardwired into your core SELF.
Lack of integrity may also be unintentional. We may see it in people who have not yet developed an internal sense of SELF, either because they are not yet old enough, or because they grew up in environments that were not safe or emotionally healthy. If I were one of those people, then I would €become€ whatever the people around me expected. I would be €defined€ by whomever I was with, thus the phrase, €amoeba€ above, reflecting an organism whose shape changes depending on its container. Perhaps €amoeba-like€ people are not intentionally manipulative, and perhaps we would not consider them immoral. However, without a sense of SELF or a moral center, they can't behave with integrity.
Why should we behave with integrity? Well, some of us find spiritual motivations for pursuing integrity. We have decided on the €God€ we will follow, and have accepted the values that go along with that decision. Others of us have inherited a set of values from our families or communities, and have either actively decided to continue these values, have adopted them rather unconsciously, or fear the results of not following these traditions.
But wouldn't it be easier to have one moral compass, and to follow it consistently? It is emotionally exhausting to have to guess what all of the people around you expect you to be and do. And without knowing ourselves and choosing a moral center, what happens when those we are watching lead in different directions? What happens when your children want one thing and your wife wants another? What happens when your boss wants something from you that conflicts with your family needs? What happens when the stockholders in your company want to increase their profits at the expense of the environment or people's health? Without a moral center, a set of guiding principles, how will you then decide which direction to turn?
How might you find that €compass?€ Sometimes developing character takes merely deciding to do the right thing, a decision that we have the capacity to make if we have the desire. Integrity is a virtue that is developed over time as we decide in different situations what the €right thing€ is. However, integrity requires knowing who we are before we can act consistently on how we want to live. So the steps suggested here are likely to sound more psychological than the steps necessary for other virtues. Begin by asking yourself:
·€ Who am I?
·€ What do I feel, think, need, or want out of life?
·€ What are my talents and skills, and which of them make me happy or fulfill me?
·€  If I were to list 10 characteristics that describe my life, or that I would like to describe my life, what would they be?
·€ How am I doing at consistently living out these characteristics?
·€  When am I most true to myself? When am I not? What do I need to do to improve in consistently living out who I am?
Use the space below to begin answering these questions and then begin acting consistently on what you discover. A journal may be necessary for the ongoing self-inquiry necessary to developing integrity