Guest Opinion: Integrity

This Guest Post was written by Ian Camacho. You can read his blog about the entertainment production industry at http://producerindevelopment.wordpress.com/
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“Integrity is nice to have and all, but it is a luxury for those without any real life responsibilities.”

I saw this comment on an Internet forum in response to one of those articles about integrity. It gave me serious pause as it had more of an emotional effect on me than that entire clichéd article about integrity. And since this blog basically is all about our integrity with the world, I felt it was worth examining.

When I am fully honest with myself, that’s what I really think deep down, isn’t it? I mean, how can I balance a life full of responsibilities, not to mention desires and obligations, which often compete and conflict with one another?

So I had to look at the statement again and really break it down.

Let’s first look at the word integrity. Most people use it to mean “honest” or “good”. While those are nice things to have, that is not the definition of integrity. To have integrity is to be whole and complete, meaning that my words align with my actions. Looking at it from that perspective, every action I take in one area of my life impacts every other part, even when I put on masks and personas elsewhere.

Taking an even wider perspective, every single thing I do affects not just me, but every other thing on the planet in some way, whether or not I am aware of the consequences.

I mean, sure, I would like the world to be a better place and be in better health, but not if it means having to change my current ways. Someone else, somewhere, somehow will take care of it. I’ve got my own life issues to deal with, like paying the bills, building my career and all the rest of my problems. So now what?

Let’s look at the second part of the statement: “Those without any real life responsibilities”.

So that got me thinking as to what person has no life responsibilities? Then I realized: someone who is dead. To be alive is to have problems and responsibilities; only the dead have none. That’s why they say, “rest in peace”.

As living human beings, we cannot be perfect in our integrity. We can become better integrated in all of our affairs so that there is less separation between our various “realms” (health, home, spiritual, financial, job, relationships, etc) and be more present, authentic, vulnerable and loving with others. But we also must accept that we are selfish, inauthentic, hypocritical, imperfect and deeply flawed. This is what it means to be human.

At first I found it depressing, but now I find it freeing. When I can admit and believe that I am never going to be fully in my integrity until the day I die, and that I will always try to look good and be selfish, then I can accept myself and others in the world who are the same way.

It may not be the luxury of integrity, but I’ll settle for acceptance and keep my real life problems, thank you very much.