Integrity: What is That?

I was reared by military parents. Ethics and integrity are instilled me. But today, folks don’t even know what integrity means. It means standing by your word, it means your word is your bond, it means you will back up what you say, and that you stand for doing what’s right.

Integrity: The quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards. In other words, always doing the right thing.

Integrity is as simple as picking up trash you dropped, and as complex as realizing that what you do in your everyday life may be seen by others, and always acting accordingly.

I was at the stop light the other day. The man in the opposite lane from me opened his car door and dumped the trash from his fast food meal out of the door. At the ATM, the woman in front of me grabbed the receipt from the machine, tossed it on the ground and drove off. I watched some kids walk right past a trash can and toss their trash on the ground.

I smile as I hold the door open for a person. That person walked right in and cut someone off at a counter without so much as the whisper of a "thank you" or a "pardon me."

Integrity spills over into every waking moment of your life. In everything you think about, in everything you do. As individuals, we are not the only ones failing to fulfill our full potential as ethical people. Corporations are now just as cut-throat as some of the lowest criminal anyone could face. Employers no longer revere employees for a job well done and dependability, instead, they cut positions back, double-up work on the survivors and either fail to give earned raises, or make life so miserable that no one wants to work the job anyway. 

I personally experienced the disrespect of name-calling and yelling from a former manager. Had I done that to the manager, it would have been grounds for immediate termination. Where does it stop and with whom does it start?

What have we come to as a society? Are we thankful for the material things for which we work so hard, or do we feel entitled to them? Are we thankful that our employers continually want us to appear for work every day, and do we give that employer our very best each and every day? Do we earn our keep? Are we thinking and acting with integrity?

Are we treating each other with kindness and respect? Are we helping our brothers and sisters when they need us? Do we reap what we sow? Are we getting what we give?

Are we teaching our children what they need in order for them to treat others with the courtesy and respect that we all so desperately deserve?

And whatever happened to taking responsibility for our actions? Why can’t we just say “I’m sorry”, or “I forgot” or even “I really messed up” instead of “he/she made me do it” or “it wasn’t me” or the old “it was because."

We don’t need an excuse when we err, we need to own up to it and take responsibility for the decision we make. As humans, we make mistakes, sometimes even when we think we’re right at the time, and the aftermath proves we should have made another decision. The appropriate answer might be “well, I thought that was a good idea at the time, but I see maybe another decision might have been better."

No one can be mad when you give your best, when you’re honest, and when you strive to do the right thing.

And what kind of example are we being to our children? Are we instilling good behavior? Are we emulating the kind of person we want them to be? Are we teaching and training the right things, or are we dumping them in front of the TV, or on a baby sitter, or a school or daycare? Ultimately, as parents, we owe the ultimate degree of rearing. It is our responsibility to make sure they know right from wrong. 

It is up to us to make sure our children know how to behave in public, to respect others, and to learn and listen in school. It is not the responsibility of grandparents, daycare workers or educators, their job is something else entirely. Children learn what they see, and we have responsibilities to be the excellent role model they so deserve.

What television shows are teaching your children normal behavior? Unfortunately, children cannot discern what’s real and what’s not real because that’s our job as parents, and that's why it’s so important that we do our very best when it comes to raising them. 

Just because a TV show is in cartoon format does not mean it’s appropriate for children. And don’t even think they “don’t understand." I learned to cuss when I was very, very young because that’s the language my father taught and I emulated him. Make sense?

So what is integrity? 

It’s something that we can earn once we deliver it. Make your word your bond, stand firm in doing what’s right, no matter what. Ultimately, we all have to answer to someone. Integrity starts with you. If you sit around waiting for someone to respect you first, you will get exactly what you’ve shown. Someone has to take the first step, might as well be you, even if you don’t think they deserve it. When you show respect, you earn respect, it is not the other way around.