The Essence of Personal Integrity: What is personal integrity and why is there not more?

I started a discussion forum in my fan club on LinkedIn,  Power of Essence with JD Messinger, to start a discussion on the essence of cadinal virtues and values and why there seems to be such a decline in society. See Power of Essence forum by clicking here.

One of the members asked this question, "Personal Integrity - why is it not valued more in our culture?"

Let me take a stab at providing my thoughts. I encourage everyone to share theirs!

Integrity is defined by Encarta World Dictionary as follows:

1. possession of firm principles: the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards
2. completeness: the state of being complete or undivided ( formal ) "the territorial integrity of the nation"
3. wholeness: the state of being sound or undamaged ( formal )"public confidence in the integrity of the voting process"

Those are interesting but not extremely practical. Here is my definition:

"Personal integrity is very simply when a person says what they mean, means what they say, and does what they say they will do."

1. My version - "says what they mean" - relates to the Encarta - "steadfastly adheres to ... standards".
2. My version - "means what they say" - relates to the Encarta - "state of being complete and undivided" internally within.
3. My version - "does what they say" - relates to the Encarta - "state of being sound."

Let's go back to the question, assuming I am close to a reasonable definition of personal integrity: "Why is it not valued more in socieity?"

I believe we have a total collapse of integrity in the United States and I think this has occurred because of one major reason.

Fear.

Fear of being candid, transparent, held accountable, truthful, or responsible. Additionally, a person cannot say whay they mean if they don't know what their standards are; a person cannot mean what they say if they are not in touch with their heart and a person cannot do what they say if their mind is confused and scattered.

Thats the short answer, here's the longer version.

(1) People no longer have a strong set of 'standards' because too many have no role figures. I see this everyday with children in school who are undisciplined, disrepectful, and feel no personal responsibility. And why should they? Where are the role models? In fact what these children see is quite the opposite. It's all around us, plastered in the media or on television, but kids don't read the paper or watch the news. They get their information from Facebook, Twitter and text messages. About a year ago I spoke to a group of undergraduates at a major university and I was completely shocked when not one in the audience had ever read a newspaper, or at least admitted it when I asked for a show of hands. I wonder if they read books on the subject or if any professors teach these things in college, I doubt it. Then again, I went to a college where leadership was the curriculum so what do I know about college? In summary, there can be no adherence to standards if there is no mother or father or role model to teach them. The rule of the jungle applies and the jungle is the internet and digital world and it is very dangerous to stick your neck out.

(2) More and more people have lost touch with their internal guidance system, their heart. This is related to the above reason. Who am I, what do I like, what are my passions, values, beliefs and dreams? With constant bombardment to the tune of thousands of texts, tweets, emails, video games, streaming movies - the super computer we call a brain becomes confused. This supercompeter sends fifty trillion electrical impulses to fifty trillion cells every nanosecond. It IS electrons! It IS a fibr optic network. And the motherboard is busy processing so much information from others that there is no time for it to process information from within. Stated differently, our head is so filled with external information that the internal signals from the heart are never processed.  A peson cannot have personal integrity, adhereing to an internal rudder if they are not in touch with their heart. Again, being in touch with one's heart is a dangerous thing, let alone sharing it. Reference the Hero by Mariah Carey. Play it again and again and you will begin to understand.

(3) Hopefully the above two points make it easier to understand why a person cannot do what they say, because they are not complete - not whole - not grounded: instead they are distracted and scattered. Just look around, you see it driving, shopping or working. Try to have a short conversation with the person on line in front of you on something mundane. My guess is that at least 50 percent of the time you will get a blank stare. There is one exception: In the gym people are exercising, they are filling their lungs with oxygen and body with endorphins and more importantly, they are clearing their minds. In the gym, people are grounded. When your skiing on a mountain you're pretty grounded as well (otherwise you fall or crash into a tree).

Sorry for the long explantion. As always, what do you think?

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