Integrity
Having integrity means living up to your spoken principles. That of course starts with honesty. Tell the truth to others in all cases as best you can. And always tell the truth to yourself, it is one of the most important of life practices.
Keep in mind that diplomacy is also an important concept to live by. Consider before you speak what your words will mean to the people hearing them. You don’t always have to speak the whole truth every time just to speak your mind.
As talked about in Compromise and also in Steadfastness, never confuse style with substance. If you meet someone in a business meeting that you find to be rude and obnoxious and stupid, it wouldn’t be very wise to say so during the meeting if you are looking for a positive outcome. If someone that you know asks you how they look, they might be looking for a critique, but they also might be seeking moral support instead of a brutally honest assessment of their clothing or current bodyfat.
This is the kind of situation where having integrity to the principle of kindness, or to the principle of wisdom in understanding people’s responses, might overshadow the principle of total honesty. There will be many cases in real life where you have to make these kinds of choices. Your specific relationship with the person you speak to will determine what you say and how you say it. And keep in mind that what you say may not be correct, there are many points of view.
Having integrity means that you are never a hypocrite. There are no circumstances--none--where you do one thing but say another. As covered in the lesson on Self, the responsibility for keeping your behavior in line with your integrity is 100% up to you.
In the above example, you can be showing integrity to some principles while de-emphasizing others, you are not being deceptive. And all of the principles being considered in the example are important to live by at various times. Balancing them all, including the principle of just being polite to strangers, is always the ongoing challenge of making good life choices. That challenge is why keeping watch on yourself as discussed in that lesson on Self is so important.
Life is often full of gray areas and in some cases your integrity will call for some principles to bend in favor of others. Bending, for a good cause, can be okay. Breaking never is.
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Integrity
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