Integrity

Some have it...

Growing up, my brother and I learned to lie. A lot. We had to, because we were constantly in trouble over the smallest things. Especially as teens, we were constantly on restriction for weeks at a time.

One famous story I still remember, my brother was sitting on the toilet, and took a hair brush and started pulling the hair out of it and throwing it in the toilet while he did his business. When he was done, he flushed the toilet and went about his day. A little while later our step-mom (who was only 10 years older than me) went into the bathroom and saw a few stray hairs in the toilet bowl, and went ballistic, and accused both my brother and I of the crime. Daryl, my brother, went to our little sister, who was probably 3 years old at the time, and convinced her that she was the culprit, and got her to “confess”.

Crisis averted, that time.

But that was our lives growing up. I’m not saying we were angels, but the punishments were to severe that we had to lie to avoid the worst of it. A bit of it was justified, but a lot was wildly over-reactions.

And of course, that type of response carried over to my adult life, especially in the military. More than once I got in trouble, tried to lie my way out of it, and in the end made things even worse for myself. But over time, I started to accept the fact that it was better to own up to my mistakes instead. As the saying goes, honesty is the best policy.

It also helps when your boss treats mistakes as learning opportunities than crimes against humanity.

It’s all about personal integrity.

Of course, integrity has much deeper meanings and expectations than just being honest. As a man, the most valuable commodity I have is my word. If I say I will do something, I’m expected to do it. If you can’t be trusted to keep your word, how can I or anyone else depend on you when needed?

And it seems that in today’s political climate, lying is almost expected. Lies just flow like water without any signs of consequences. Integrity in our political system is almost non-existent. And this infects everyone, especially with our current state of social media and 24 hour news cycle. What is worse, the truth is labelled as “misinformation” that only gets exposed long after the damage is done.

And all of this has to have some mental impact, the constant anger and despair over the course of years, and it doesn’t seem to get better, only worse. The constant use of derogatory labels, most often completely unjustified, is pretty much accepted and expected, so much they have lost almost all meaning.

I for one, don’t see us returning to a civilized society any time soon.

I am not one without faults, I have plenty. Everyone does. But at the very least, if I give my word about something, I am going to keep it. And if someone says they will do something, or if I ask them to do something, I expect the same. Sadly, on more than one occasion, I’ve found myself learning hard lessons on who I can trust and who I can’t, and that’s a shame, especially from men who I think should know better.