Integrity is my highest value. I do my best to live by it every single day. I struggle when I see people say and do things that are disingenuous. Lying, cheating, stealing, taking advantage of others for their own (selfish) gain. All the things someone might do to step on others to advance themselves, to make things better for themselves alone, to get ahead of the game.
Honestly, I don’t like it.
What is integrity? What does it mean exactly?
A good place to start with these things is a dictionary definition of course. So here is one to consider.
A Google search of the word ‘integrity’ came up with this from the Oxford Languages dictionary came up with:
- the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
- the state of being whole and undivided.
Let’s ponder this for a moment together, shall we?
The ‘quality’ of being honest and having strong moral principles. Does this mean being moralistic, that only you know what’s ‘right’ and what’s ‘wrong’? Do you get to decide that for everyone? No, but do you get to decide that for yourself? In a sense, yes. It’s about knowing what sits right with you and what doesn’t, what feels right to you and what doesn’t. Does that mean you get to impose your meaning of right and wrong, your ‘standard’, upon everyone else? No, but it does mean you have a standard that you uphold for yourself.
And, of course, we haven’t yet talked about the ‘honesty’ part. Yes, honesty is the best policy and all that as we go about our lives, as we all know, but more importantly, honesty is also the best policy when we look upon ourselves, look upon our own lives, our behaviours, actions and beliefs and take the time to really, truly, face ourselves. Which, of course, is not easy to do.
What about the part of ‘being whole and undivided’? I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty easy to pick ourselves apart, divide ourselves up into the parts we like and the parts we don’t. What then though? Just throw away the parts of ourselves we don’t like? The flaws? The ‘ugly’ bits? If only it was that simple. Of course, it’s not.
Nor should it be. Nothing, and no-one, is perfect in life.
We are all divinely imperfect.
This is what you are, what I am, what we all are.
Without the flaws, we wouldn’t appreciate beauty. Without the parts we don’t like, we wouldn’t know what we do like. Without the tension between these contrasts, we wouldn’t find peace in the harmony when all the pieces come back together, whole and undivided, in integrity.
Living a life in integrity is about living a life that is true for you, what lights up your world, what makes your heart beat. It’s about finding out what’s right for you, what has meaning to you, then making decisions and behaving in alignment.
Easy to say, not so easy to do, especially if you, like me, aren’t sure what is really true for you. Self-exploration is the key to unlocking this. This is the hard part, the part where we may find out things about ourselves we don’t like and don’t want to face, question what we thought we wanted but discover we don’t, realise we don’t actually believe long-held ‘beliefs’ and points of view.
It will shake you, potentially to your core. It’s rocked me. As the pieces of me have become unstuck and fallen to the ground, I have been slowly picking through them, trying them back on for size to see what actually is the right fit for me – and what isn’t. This is no easy task. It’s confronting, questioning yourself, your core beliefs, even things you have used for so long to identify yourself. However, to live in integrity, everything needs to be peeled away from you, examined from a distance, and only brought back close to you if it truly feels right.
Only then will you know what is right for you, the standard that applies to you, that guides you in your life.
Challenge yourself to really get to know who you are, rise to the occasion of figuring out what’s right for you, and, set your own high standard for your life.
I’m doing it, by sharing my experiences here with you on this blog. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. It’s also in alignment with me – raw, honest, vulnerable and hopefully empowering you to do the same.
Live in Integrity