Integrity

Integrity. It's one of those words we all think we understand, and yet, when asked what it means, we might find ourselves stumbling out partial answers. It's about character and being ethical. It's about doing the right thing, or aligning yourself with the side of good. It involves telling the truth, and keeping promises, and being dependable. Right? 

Well. These are all implications of integrity. But what, actually, is it?

The word comes from the same etymological root as integer, meaning a whole number. And there's a big clue. Integrity is somehow about wholeness. It's about not compartmentalizing your decisions and actions, walling off some from the rest of who you are. It's about acting with the wholeness or entirety of your beliefs and values, in every choice. 

But wait. A thoroughly bad guy, an immensely corrupt character, a murderous terrorist could act in every choice with and from the wholeness or entirety of his insane beliefs and perverse values, but we wouldn't call him an individual with integrity, would we? No. Of course not. Because integrity isn't just about consistency. It's a moral concept. And there's our second clue.

A rascal, criminal, or deranged psycho can be consistent in his actions, throughout the range of his conduct. That is to say, his actions can be consistent with each other, and with the false beliefs and skewed values he holds. But to have integrity, you have to display wholeness in another sense. You need the wholeness of health. Integrity is about moral health. And that's about more than just mere consistency among your actions. Your choices and action have to also be consistent with objective standards of health that are independent of your own thoughts and feelings - that are, in a metaphysical sense "out there" in the world.

What are those standards? I suggested years ago in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors that they're Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, understood properly. If your life, thought, and actions are all consistent, or at one, with Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, then you are a person of integrity. You have integrity. Or better, it has you. Because there's an important sense in which you don't really possess it until it owns you. You can be good in fits and starts - a mostly good character, a decent soul, overall, even a kind person most of the time, but if there is not a higher calling that you've said yes to, in a deep and abiding way, perhaps because you really don't see any reasonable alternative, then you aren't yet a person of integrity.

That's a high standard. But that's because it's what integrity is all about. Most people admire it from afar. Some actually live with it. Many are apparently blind to it, and just don't get what the big deal is about it. But I'm convinced that it's tied in deeply with not only what I call "true success," but also true happiness, contentment and fulfillment. It's also a part of what it takes to make your best possible mark on the world.

Are you living with it? many of us try to embody it in at least most aspects of our lives, at least most of the time. But it calls us to live it wholeheartedly, fully, and consistently across everything we do. It's a high calling, and a hard calling, but it's the one true path to the best life we can live. As such, it's well worth working hard to attain.

Means and Ends and a Cat

As a philosopher, I learn in many ways. Early this morning, I came to an important realization.

Our cat likes to jump on my bedside table at 5:20AM and rub his face against a lamp shade, bumping it loudly into the wall. The purpose is to wake me up to feed him, or let him out of the room to roam or play with his adopted brother, the upstairs cat, or sometimes I think he just wants to see if he can get me up. I'm not usually ready to get up at 5:20. And if I pick him up off the table, or brush him gently off, to stop the racket and save the lamp, he just jumps back up and goes at it again. The second or third time, he typically begins throwing books off the table, one or two at a time. Yesterday, he started with a red leather moleskin diary, then a paperback novel, then a hardcover, and finally a large hardcover. And I won't even list the pens and other assorted items he tosses onto the floor. He must have jumped onto the table 12 times. And there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor, as a result.

My daughter suggested that I use a large spray bottle of water, which she's learned he doesn't like. She suspected that would stop him. So I filled the bottle and placed it on the table at bedtime last night. When the expected 5:20 wake up event happened this morning before dawn, I emerged from a deep sleep, fumbled to get the bottle in my hand, finally managing it, and in the pitch dark, I squeezed the spray handle as hard as I could, and successfully squirted a huge amount of water right into the middle of my own face. 

Well, that was a surprise that woke me up more fully than the cat. I couldn't believe what I had done. I also couldn't believe what happened next. 

The cat loudly jumped off the table and went to the far side of the large bedroom, where he then stayed. I guess, at that point, he didn't know what I'd do next. Or it could be that he just didn't want to see me drench myself again, altruist that he may, deep down, be.

The moral of the story is that, sometimes, even when our actions and plans seem to fail as means to an end, the end can nonetheless still be attained. Therefore, we shouldn't prematurely label an effort a failure just because it misfires in some strange way. The ultimately desired end may yet ensue. Curiosity may take the cat off to a safe distance where he can view the proceedings in greater safety. 

What's the old saying? God works in mysterious ways. So does the world. There are more ways things can develop than we initially might imagine. Even spraying yourself with cold water in the face in the dark is not necessarily the minor cat-astrophe it may at first seem.

Little Things, Habit, and Life

"Sow an act and you reap a habit, Sow a habit and you reap a character, Sow a character and you reap a life." Statement by Charles Reade.

“Just this one time won’t hurt anything.” Statement by Almost Everyone Else.

How often do we use this reasoning, The-Insignificance-of-One-Time? Well, here’s the news from ancient times: Little things add up. One deed is never insignificant. 

This is bad news for bad actions, good news for the good. We're always in a state of becoming. Every decision, action, or reaction, every thought we have or emotion we feel sows seeds for the future. Anything we do now will make it easier to go do likewise in the future. And as the great diagnostician of human character, Montaigne, once said, “Habit is second nature.” The bad exception thus infects us. But the good effort grows in us.

Positive actions, however difficult, pave the way to a better future. Our actions create our character, and our character creates our destiny. The ancient philosopher Heraclitus proclaimed that “Character is destiny.” And he was right. Do something about your destiny today. In some little way, with some decision or act of initiative, however small, build toward the future you desire for yourself and those you love. 

However hard the right thing to do might feel, it will create a tendency that will carry you on more powerfully toward the future you genuinely want. So remember that.

Today.