Integrity.

The word “integrity” has hit such a chord with me recently. I haven’t written in a while because I’ve been doing videos but I feel the need to write about the word “integrity” more in depth.

Integrity is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

I grew up with people around me “having integrity” or “doing the right thing”. It was always very simple in my mind what was and wasn’t the right thing. 

And then I got older. 

As I’m sure you know, life gets significantly more complicated.

Friendships, relationships, work, kids, finances, family, health, illness and on and on and on. The lines blur sometimes as far as what is and what isn’t the right thing. Life is not always black and white and I pause when I am met with people who think it is. I typically don’t spend energy on these folks, because they haven’t experienced something I think they need to experience yet in order to understand the concept. 

I’m not an absolute person – not with politics, not with religion, spirituality, anything. I am conflicted in my beliefs 95% of the time. 

In the last six years (since my divorce) I have worked tirelessly on viewing things from an open mind – I’m not always perfect and there are times I am prone to being stubborn and close minded – BUT, like anything, the more I practice, the better I get at it.  Some of my friends get frustrated with me because I often play devil’s advocate and try to see the other side of the coin. This isn’t to be argumentative, but it’s to show them, life is more complicated than just “right and wrong”. Rarely do I “take sides.”

Personally, I have been in situations where decisions were excruciatingly difficult. Decisions where I knew no matter what choice I made, there would be negative consequences. Loss of valued friendships (expected and unexpected), looking like the bad guy, and not having an opportunity to defend myself because people made snap judgments without having all of their information. This is why the word “integrity” strikes such a chord with me.    

That’s not to say, every decision I made was the right one. I’ve made several mistakes in my life – who hasn’t? (I would like to meet the person who has made zero mistakes). I would argue integrity is what happens after you have made mistakes.

My mistakes have taught me a level of forgiveness for others when they have made mistakes because no one else knows what that person was dealing with when they made that decision.

I’ve learned sometimes it’s not worth expending the energy to defend yourself in situations and if someone wants to see you as the bad guy, they will. Some fights just aren’t worth it. Something I truly do believe is, things always come full circle. Maybe not immediately, perhaps years down the road, but they do. 

Recently, I had someone apologize to me after years of my being “the bad guy” in their mind.I never defended myself with this person because they were so absolute in how they felt about a situation. Again, defending myself was a waste of my energy. They recently learned of both sides of the situation and their apology was a balm on a wound that had been open for years.

I have talked a lot about not caring about what other people think. For the most part, I’ve become a lot better at this, but I think it’s human nature to care what others think of you. When I am seen as “the bad guy” or “someone without integrity” it wreaks havoc on my heart. I am harder on myself than anyone. My only defense which I find to be most productive is tirelessly working on not judging others (or trying very hard not to) and helping others see – there’s more than one side and integrity is not always black and white.