When I change my mind I'm stopping what I said I would do and what I
was originally doing, and now I'm doing something different, something
which is neither in sequence with what I originally said I would do nor
with what I was originally doing.
There was a time in the past when I rarely if ever changed my mind once
I said I'll do something and started doing it. For me this was the
definition of
keeping my word.
It was the basis of the tenets "a promise is a promise"
and
"a man's word is his
bond".
For me it was also the foundation of integrity - or at
least it was the foundation of whatever I considered integrity to be.
But the trouble with never changing my mind (not to
mention being right about never changing my mind), my
erstwhile views of integrity aside, was more often than not it made
things heavy and significant.
This way of thinking goes way back to my very first
lessons in Life both in school and in
religion
and morality. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I got changing my
mind tangled up with breaking my word, and I already
had breaking my word categorized as a bad thing.
Furthermore I got breaking my word tangled up with being out of
integrity, and I had already had being out of integrity categorized
as a very bad thing.
It's taken me a while to get this way of thinking (well intentioned as
it may be) unstuck from integrity. It's taken me a while
to distinguish between what I consider to be the right thing to do (ie
morality), and integrity. It's taken me a while to get I can
change my mind and still be in integrity. I've realized
never changing my mind no matter what,
restricts creativity and innovation. It's more than that actually: it's
likely to interfere with and impede doing
what works.
This looking at new possibilities for changing my mind is a very
thin ice conversation. It's a very slippery
slope. Where, for example, is the line between changing my mind without
any regard for a promise made and integrity entrusted, and changing my
mind keeping a high regard for a promise made and integrity entrusted?
Who I am
in this matter is, for me, a high regard for a promise made and
integrity entrusted.
I'm not proposing to make changing my mind acceptable, especially when
I've promised to do something, especially when my integrity is
entrusted. I'm not looking for a way to make breaking my
word OK. I'm not wanting an easy way out of tough choices.
What I'm proposing rather is an appropriate, empowering
context
in which there's a freedom to change my mind and honor
the promise made and the integrity entrusted.
From time to time airline pilots have to recalibrate their
flight plans. They have to invoke mid-course corrections. They
say they'll be flying to, say
Nadi Fiji.
They give a flight time and a direction they'll be traveling. In
effect, they make a promise to get to
Nadi
in so many hours flying in such and such a direction. If this flight
path, it turns out later, would fly them into the
eye of a hurricane,
they would have to change their flight plans. They must. They
would, in effect, have to change their mind. And because they're the
pilots entrusted with the safety of their passengers, there would be no
doubt whatsoever that changing their mind has integrity.
This is what works for me: recognizing the integrity in changing my
mind, and recognizing it in a much biggercontext
than
keeping my word.
In the case of the pilots flying to
Nadi
into the
eye of a hurricane,
yes the immediate promise is to get to
Nadi
in so many hours flying in such and such a direction. But the
biggercontext
for their promise is to get all their passengers to
Nadisafely. Clearly this
context
for changing their mind
works.
There's one last thing to consider. My integrity in changing my mind
isn't violated if I don't
keep my word
because my integrity wasn't ever in the domain of
keeping my word
in the first place. My integrity lives in the domain of
honoring my
word.
As with everything I've gotten from listening Werner, the distinction
between
honoring my word
as the
context
for integrity rather than
keeping my word
as the
context
for integrity is both subtle and profound. It's another distinction in
the rich body of distinctions titled "Distinctions which, once
gotten,
transform
Life".