I am indebted to Commander Dreyvan Dayse,
Indian
Navy (ret), and to Owen Gusman who inspired this conversation, and to
George Swan who contributed material.
You all remember the first occasion you rode a bicycle successfully
without falling down. Even if you didn't say it this way at that tender
age, what you did was you distinguished balance. From then on,
it wasn't necessary to first distinguish balance before riding your
bike again: you simply got on and rode. Balance, once distinguished, is
permanently imprinted. And once you'd distinguished balance, riding
your bike (and everything else in the entire physical universe, for
that matter) entered a new realm of possibility.
You also remember the first time you distinguished
integrity
as
honoring your
word.
And once you'd distinguished
integrity
as
honoring your word,
living and life itself entered a new realm of possibility in which
integrityplays
a pivotal role, if not the essential role. Yet although
they're both
learned
distinctions,
integrity
doesn't imprint like balance. It's not its nature. Unlike balance,
you have to generate
integrity
again and again over and over and over on each and every single
occasion.
That's the essence of a
conversation
a
friend
and I were enjoying in which he was
reflecting
on having distinguished balance once and, from then on, never losing
it. He was, from then on, never off balance (so to
speak)
- or we also could say he was "never out of balance" if
you will. But he was, as he ruefully noted, unable to get to the same
place with
integrity
ie a place where, having distinguished it once, he would be, from then
on, "never out of
integrity".
He knows the cost of being out of balance. Yet he doesn't have to
generate balance over and over again. Balance imprints. Yet even
knowing
the cost of being out of
integrity,
he has to generate
integrity
over and over again.
Integrity
doesn't imprint like balance - even though knowing the cost of being
out of
integrity,
imprints. This is
how
it is with
integrity.
The pull, we both
observed,
is toward balance, not away from it. Yet the pull is away
from
integrity,
not toward it. Distinguishing
integrity
(and in particular, distinguishing the cost of being out of
integrity)
doesn't ensure
integrity.
Yes that's a good start ... but that's all it is. You have to generate
integrity
ongoingly, otherwise there's no
integrity.
The bad
news
is: you're a
human being:
you can always be pulled, skewed, and tempted away from
integrity.
The good
news
is: you're a
human being:
you can always generate
integrity.
ListeningWernerspeakingintegrity,
I get that being in
integrity
is like climbing a
mountain
(it's not like walking on flat ground - that's too pedestrian). And
it's actually more than like merely climbing a
mountain:
it's like climbing a
mountainwith no top, so you can never make it to the top. More than
that, this topless
mountainkeeps on growing, so even when you think you've made it to the
top, you're not there yet! In this case, it's best to
learn to love the climb.
So it's naïve to
speak
of being in
integrity
in the same breath as acquiring balance.
Integrity's
not like that. That's not the way it
works.
Integrity's
generated. It's not imprinted ie it doesn't imprint.
The implications of these assertions perhaps fill some of the gaps in
our knowledge of
human
nature. People who grew up in an environment with no
integrity,
can still generate
integrity.
And people who grew up in an environment withintegrity,
may not generate
integrity.
Vice versa, the same could be said for whomever's pulled away from
being in
integrity.
People who grew up in an environment with
integrity,
may not recognize the pull away from
integrity,
and then live out of
integrity.
And people who grew up in an environment with nointegrity,
may yet recognize the pull away from
integrity,
and then choose to generate
integrity.
Integrity
isn't a function of the environment we grew up in. It's a
stand
we freely and ongoingly choose to take. It's not conditioned behavior.
Integrity
doesn't imprint like balance.
