INTEGRITY MONTH: DAY 21: “Your integrity, your dignity, your honor – they aren’t for sale. Not ever. Not to anyone.”― James Patterson
If they ARE for sale, they are not those things. If you ARE for sale, YOU do not have those things. It is as simple as that.
We cannot sell our lives, time or our souls and expect to have integrity, dignity, or honor. This is how we know if we are acting in accordance with those principles or not.
I have been so fearful of financial insecurity that I have worked in jobs that I did not believe in. I sold myself to pay my bills and I knew it. I worked for unethical people, even when I refused to participate in what they were doing. But I knew I was participating at some level just by knowing what they were doing and remaining in that job.
Today I have seen how this angered me and how I was less than honorable or integral. Without those two principles, dignity is not possible.
I am the only person who can judge my integrity accurately. I know the difference. It is in my heart and my gut. Ego will justify and excuse things. I cannot . I know when I am being spiritually lazy and refusing to do or say something that I should say or do.
I do not gain any sense of self-worth or self-respect until I take the action that I know I need to take. Refusing to do so makes me a sell-out. And I tend to become incredibly angry about that. I may think I can wait for the other person to do something that either changes the situation or to give me greater incentive, but that is not integrity. When I know what I need to do, no matter how scary or uncomfortable, the ONLY right action is to JUST DO IT. And to not justify my inaction with excuses or reasons why I am waiting…which is really called procrastination.
Doing that will make me angry and then I am taking the action out of anger. I am liable to over-react then, and that, too is not an integral form of action. It is just what I said, reaction. And I am not going to react well. I know that from experience of ignoring things I don’t want to do.
Today I know that when I need to take action, the ONLY course for me is to take it. It always feels so much better, no matter what story Ego tells me about it. I learned that here…and I am grateful.
Dolphin Hug 