Living
with Integrity
“Integrity:
choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast,
or easy and choosing to practice your values rather than simply professing
them.”
Brene
Brown
I was
disappointed that Liz Cheney lost her primary yesterday. I didn’t always agree
with her and most of the time, she torpedoed every Democratic initiative, but
she had integrity. Having integrity may not sound like much, but for me it’s
everything—in today’s politics, where most people seem willing to sell their
souls to the highest bidder, it stands out as unique.
For
those of us who are not in politics, integrity means doing what we say we will in a
timely fashion. It means walking your talk in every area—not just stating a
belief but living it. It means standing up for what you love rather than allowing
it or them to be used and abused. It means being true to yourself rather than cow-towing
to another person or trying to become what the other person wants you to be. It
means standing in your own truth even when it’s unpopular. It’s hard in our
world today to truly have integrity. You won’t run with the popular crowd. And,
like Liz, you may not win your primary.
Integrity
requires us to consider what is good for the most people. What has value for
the poor as well as the rich. What will serve our country or community rather
than what benefits only us. In other words, it requires a degree of selflessness
rarely seen today.
Here are some words from Joe
Elmore, a retired Methodist minister I know: “Much of the hurt results from
a hurried and distracted style of living that focuses on getting what we want.
It may result from anxious striving for recognition, a competitive spirit bent
on winning, involving constant struggle to get ahead of others. The fact is there
are multiple ways we seek to feed our selfish desires.”
Integrity and selfishness
are incompatible. Taking care of oneself is different from being selfish. Taking
care of oneself does not mean that others must sacrifice their safety and
security so that we can have what we want. Empathy goes hand-in-hand with
integrity. If you see a homeless person on the street, and your first response
is how bad that person looks and what his/her presence says about your
community, it’s possible that you lack both integrity and compassion. If your
first response includes concern for the homeless person’s safety and security
and whether they have sufficient food and shelter, you’re making progress. If we
only help the people we deem “worthy of our help” then we have missed the boat entirely.
There is much to think
about when it comes to making our world a better place. Integrity informs all
of them. Without it, nothing will change, and with it, everything will change. And
change is what we need most of all.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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