"Integrity is never painless. It requires that we let
matters rub up against each other,that we fully experience
the tension of conflicting needs,demands, and interests,
that we even be emotionally torn apart by them ...
It does not seek to avoid conflict, but to reconcile it."
~M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum
"Integrity means being whole, unbroken, undivided.
It describes a person who has united the different
parts of his or her personality, so there is no longer
a split in the soul ... For the person of integrity,
life may not be easy but it is simple:
Figure out what is right and do it.
All other considerations come in second."
~Harold Kushner, Living a Life That Matters
When you hear the word “integrity,” especially when applied to a particular individual, organization, or experience, what comes to mind? Do you use the term, and acknowledge the concept deliberately and with reverence, or do you use it carelessly and toss it around as frivolously as you would a used up toothpaste tube? It is my sincere hope that your response is the first rather than the latter. You might ask, “Why all the formality regarding one’s orientation to a commonly used term and generally understood idea?” The answer for this writer is rather fundamental in that he believes that integrity is the crescendo of the meshing together of all other core values, both the ones we have covered so far, and those yet to be explored in future entries. In the words of Peter Ragnar, "Values are what construct integrity, and values are what one must fight to gain, keep, and protect." Integrity acts as the sinew that binds all the other elements together - our core values and beliefs that add quality and substance to our lives – that gives our lives meaning.
The late Buckminster Fuller put the importance of integrity in these words: "Integrity is the essence of everything successful." For those of you who are at least vaguely familiar with the biography of Buckminster Fuller, you realize the power of that statement. Just as his famous “geodesic dome” design of buildings provided great strength and integrity to the structures utilizing the physics and engineering of that design, one can believe that Mr. Fuller’s approbation regarding “integrity” was no shallow gesticulation on his part.
"The creative is the place where no one else has ever been.
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go
into the wilderness of your intuition.
What you'll discover will be wonderful.
What you'll discover is yourself."
~ Alan Alda
As noted earlier, Peter Ragnar, much like Fuller, places a very high value upon integrity. As Ragnar states, “Integrity - a value so rare and hard to find. It is like a diamond in a sea of glass, which only a trained eye can detect.” To this suggestion he adds, “You cannot have a quality you're yet to identify. And once you know what it is, it does not immediately come into your possession.” After decades of searching for a meaning of integrity that he could live with, Ragnar concluded, “"Integrity is the adherence to a code of values. That's why so few ever find it within themselves." Furthermore, and why we have chosen to speak of the importance of integrity at this point in our expose on core values, Ragnar poses a query with a corresponding response: “What actually do you value, and why? If you do not have a clearly established hierarchy of the values you live your life by, values you'll never compromise, then you've yet to find integrity. Integrity is a ladder; its rungs are values. It is on this that you must climb to reach your dreams….Values are a necessity of both psychological and physical survival. They control your subconscious desires and conscious choices. They form the blueprint for your life that guides every desire and decision. It's in these values and the code you follow that forms the whole course your life will follow. The adherence to that code is your integrity. This integrity is the basis for your happiness.”
To some, speaking to the transcendent qualities of integrity may seem trite and greatly over-played for dramatic effect. As always, the reader of these entries is invited to respectfully disagree with any of the contents presented. However, it is this writer’s opinion that the person who wishes to ascend to the more rarified air of “presence,” rather than continue descending into the suffocating miasma of “existence,” striving to live a life of integrity is not an option, but a requirement. As alpinists will forewarn those aspiring to challenge the mountain, reaching the summit is fraught with seemingly endless challenges and pitfalls, the greatest of those lying within the individual rather upon the face of the mountain being scaled. So too, the individual accepting the challenge of charting a clear pathway to the summit of their life, a life of integrity, must be constantly alert to those hazards that impede their progress. Core values, much like the climber’s pitons, anchor us to something solid, something we can attach our life-line to, something that will catch us and prevent major harm and/or setback should we slip and fall. Without core values there is no integrity. Without integrity our lives are a perpetual free-fall, a life of questionable, if any, meaningful purpose.
"You have enemies?
Good!
That means you've stood up for something,
sometime in your life."
- Winston Churchill
By its very nature, integrity creates a conundrum for those seeking it. Integrity is something one fully commits to, or not at all. In the words of Peter Scotese, “Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don't.” John D. MacDonald agrees. He believes, “Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.” Also, a commitment to integrity leaves no escape route. According to Don Galer, “Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do.”
“One of the truest tests of integrity
is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”
~Chinua Achebe
In a world that seems to endorse a philosophy of “anything goes,” how do we convince ourselves or others that integrity is worth the effort. It boils down to a matter of choice; of free will. Pablo Casals expressed it this way: “Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. I don’t accept it.” British author Samuel Johnson, back in the 18th century wrote, “A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times.” Things get even more complicated if the person aspiring to live a life of, and with, integrity is searching for some type of manual or guide book to guide them. Albert Camus suggests, “Integrity has no need of rules.”
Unfortunately, Camus leaves most of us gasping for air with his “no need of rules” perspective. Most of us need something a little more substantial to assist us in getting our bearings. Bill McCartney strives toward parsimony in helping us to understand the concept of integrity, stating, "If you want to take the meaning of the word integrity and reduce it to its simplest terms, you'd conclude that a man of integrity is a promise keeper. When he gives you his word you can take it to the bank. His word is good." Barbara De Angelis is somewhat less parsimonious than McCartney when she attempts to define integrity, but still manages to winnow away the chaff. De Angelis suggests, “Living with integrity means:
• Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships.
• Asking for what you want and need from others.
• Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension.
• Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values.
• Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.”
"Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to."
~Arnold H. Glasow
Much like Little Gidding, we end up back where we began bringing us back to the question of “Why should we seek to live a life of integrity?” George Santayana ties integrity to a person’s choice of a direction in life, noting, “Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.” But, reader beware. Santayana’s “simpler and nobler” does not infer insignificance. Instead, for many, it will mean the opposite. As Charles Simmons wrote, “Integrity is the first step to true greatness. Men love to praise, but are slow to practice it. To maintain it in high places costs self-denial; in all places it is liable to opposition, but its end is glorious, and the universe will yet do it homage.” American author Grenville Kleiser believed “You are already of consequence in the world if you are known as a man of strict integrity” To spur the integrity seeker on to greater heights, Robert E. Quinn chimes in with the observation, “It is our hypocrisy and self-focus that drains us. When we become purpose centered, internally directed other focused and externally open, we discover energy we didn’t know we had."
" To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform."
~Theodore H. White
Lest the integrity seeker becomes discouraged or disillusioned, let’s consider Ayn Rand’s perspective on integrity when she stated, “Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.” Shea Vaughn, notes in the Five Living Principles, “Integrity does not examine the result – only the effort made. It is the level of honesty in the quality of effort you give to the execution of whatever you strive to do – it has to be the best you can do.” Also, living a life with/of integrity might, at times, be better served through silence and solitude as Meister Eckhart suggested when he wrote, “In silence man can most readily preserve integrity.” If you dare to choose silence and go “deeper” consider the pathway Charles B. Johnson chose. Johnson notes, “Writing is my refuge. It's where I go. It's where I find that integrity I have.” Emerson would appear to summarize these latter thoughts quiet well in his statement, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion . . . It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
“The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world,
who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by.
The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world,
himself a light.”
~Felix Adler
