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In a previous post, I wrote about self-honesty. My focus in that post was to encourage the expulsion of hypocrisy in favor of sincerity with ourselves in terms of our desires. I expounded on the importance of understanding our desires and leaning into them when necessary. There’s still a lot of grounds to cover in that regard, but I won’t be continuing with that in this post. What I want to do here is to tie the concept of self-honesty to personal integrity.
Honesty and integrity
Honesty is closely related to the term integrity. The two virtually go hand-in-hand as pursuing integrity without honesty is impossible. If you do a quick check in the Oxford dictionary, you’ll find out that honesty and integrity are derived from the Latin words honestus and integer respectively. You’ll also see that honestus was used to imply honor, respectability or decorum, virtue, chastity, and the absence of deceit. Integer, on the other hand, means intact.
integer honestus,
intact honor!
The first question that crossed my mind with regards to integer’s intact was intact what? If you’re a bit at sea about my question, let me help you out a bit. The word intact means complete or whole. So, I just wondered what was complete or whole. After carefully scrutinizing the connection between the two Latin words, I got my answer—integer honestus. Simply put, intact honor!
Over the years, the two words, as concepts, have evolved in various ways. Quite frankly, the semantics can be difficult to decipher, let alone practice. Let me put it this way. Superficially, the two words are interchangeable; however, conceptually, they are separable but compliment each other.
their [honesty and integrity] significance can never be understated as they are necessary for any form of transaction to ensure mutual trust
In our world today, people always want to be considered honorable. Essentially, we desire to be seen as honest and having integrity. This is obviously because of the enormous value allocated to these concepts in our society, and for good reason too. In fact, their significance can never be understated as they are necessary for any form of transaction to ensure mutual trust. Fortunately, despite its loftiness as an ideal, integrity is attainable, and it all starts with a decision to be honest with yourself.
Self-honesty, personal integrity and morality
Honesty and integrity for the most part are inseparable: honesty is the basis for integrity and integrity is the extension of honesty. In practice, the two complete each other. As a result, to have personal integrity, is to have self-honesty and to extend self-honesty is to gain personal integrity. To put it mathematically, personal integrity equals self-honesty plus strong moral principles.
personal integrity equals
self-honesty plus
strong moral principles
Morality is a loaded concept to unpack in a single post, but I will try to give you a gist of it (perhaps, I will go further in a separate post). The simplest synonym of morality as you may have heard is ethics—distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. It gets very complicated from here because every culture has a different set of rules when it comes to differentiating right from wrong or good from bad. I acknowledge the simple fact that what is acceptable in one place or time may be unacceptable in another instance. So, I will stick to what I know to be absolutely true. Here we go.
God is the source of morality, not humans. Have you ever wondered why integrity is so valuable besides the obvious benefits? Well, I have. Integrity is so revered because it originates from a place of reverence and more so, divine. The highest expression of integrity is the practice of truth. As humans, we like to drift away from truth and end up with compromises that allow us to operate in our various depravities. This is visible in the numerous variations we see in moral standards. Different people want different things and thus do the proverbial rule bending to achieve their goals. This inevitably leads to a new normal and with it a new morality.
God is the source of morality, not humans.
Take a quick look at all that you consider to be wrong in the world today and all you’ll see are variations of compromises that have been made to progress a depravity. The point here is this. Having personal integrity is tapping into an aspect of divinity—connecting to virtues that are characteristic of God. Since these virtues are of God, He’s the best person to help you navigate them. The reality is this. Most people who start this journey without Him, give up along the way from being overwhelmed and exhausted. On the contrary, those who lean into God, receive grace to persevere throughout their journeys. They are able to take one day at a time and enjoy the benefits.
The fastest way to personal integrity is to be honest with yourself enough to acknowledge that you need God to help you live life in absolute truth, to recognize that the essential component of personal integrity—morality—originates from Him and not from human-defined ethics, and finally, to realize that in Him, you are intact—complete and whole. (Check out How To Enter the Victorious Life)
The alternative route to personal integrity is to do it by yourself. It’s arduous, more time-consuming and painful to do it alone. This is because the virtues that are embedded in personal integrity require tremendous inner strength to exhibit consistently. Strength that is provided by God to all those who look up to Him. Rejecting God’s help means exerting yourself unnecessary and failing in the end. Sincerely speaking, I don’t see why anyone has to suffer that much for anything that can be obtained for free. It’s just not worth it! If you’re trying to figure out which way to go, I believe you have an answer: lean into God!
Maintaining personal integrity is a discipline
Personal integrity is very crucial to success in life. Without it, you’ll always be shortchanging yourself. Civil engineers are a group of professionals who constantly check the structural integrity of whatever they build. Why is this the case? Let’s take a closer look at building construction.
Generally, when erecting an edifice, a lot of different materials are skillfully put together in specific quantities. From the foundation to the columns and cross-beams to the final roofing, structural integrity of everything has to be carefully inspected to make sure that once the work is finished, the building won’t collapse on itself. Contrarily, when the structural integrity is not closely checked during the construction of a house for example, it is easy to see cracks, cave-ins or deformations that can eventually cause that house to collapse.
As structural integrity is to a house, so is personal integrity to an individual. Without constantly ensuring that your personal integrity holds at all times and in all circumstances, your entire life could come crashing down right before your eyes.
Building your life is pretty much like raising any structure. As structural integrity is to a house, so is personal integrity to an individual. Without constantly ensuring that your personal integrity holds at all times and in all circumstances, your entire life could come crashing down right before your eyes. Hence, it is absolutely important to conduct regular self-checks on your persona to make sure you’re always true to yourself in terms of your character, beliefs or desires—that’s honesty, the first check. The second is to ensure personal integrity.
Consistently practicing integer honestus will set you up for success and invariably ensure that you enjoy life to the fullest!