Without
integrity
nothing
works
... and ...
integrity
is
honoring your word,
and "that's all" she
wrote,
"end of
story.".
Look:
that
really
is the end of
story.
Anything more (and there is more) is just commentary. I shared
these précis with a
guy
whose
out-integrity
made his life
really
difficult and arduous until it was almost totally unworkable.
Yet he stuck to his guns. "Things aren't that
simple,
Laurence"
he chided. "If you
say
so ..." I smiled, realizing he forfeited any
redemption
by
being
right about life rather than giving up being right, and just having
it
work.
One
possible
way
of
viewing
integrity,
is that it's top down. Secondarily that's analogous to my
mouth
being
at (or near) the top. Primarily it's that whatever I
speak,
trickles down to the furthest reaches of life.
Observably,
my mental and physical
health
is promoted to the degree I
honor my word.
Observably,
the
experience
of
love
in
my family
and
friends'
relationships
is promoted to the degree we
honor our word.
And in those
teams
on which I play, both efficiency and enjoyment are
observably
promoted to the degree we
honor our word.
I'm not going to quote library reference materials here in support
of these phenomena. The truth is in this field, there are
some*
- albeit precious few. Rather I'm suggesting
clear
insights can be gained by
direct experience.
The key(s) to
workability
in life, is no one
person's
privilege or bailiwick.
Observe:
it's here for all of us. It's overt (ie hiding in plain sight).
The emperor isn't wearing any clothes.
It's in this third arena, in the
teams
on which we play, where the impact of the lack of top down
integrity,
can most clearly be
seen
and felt. As a group, we
humans
know the impact of some lacks on our
way
of life: lack of accommodation, lack of food and
water,
lack of rule of law. Indeed, it could be
said
our entire civilization is structured in
service
to providing accommodation, food and
water,
and rule of law. We've deemed them to be essential to life. Yet we,
for the most part, have no grasp of what the cost of the lack of
top down
integrity
is to our civilized
way
of life. We're behind the eight ball on this, even though its
impact is more detrimental than everything else combined.
Nothing
else comes close. The second placed runner is
miles and
miles
behind the first placed in this, our
lack-of-top-down-integrity
heat.
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