Integrity is that thing that we exchange with others at all times. Integrity is also the thing that many tend to let go of when it is that life gets in the way.
Integrity…
Integrity is that thing, I am finding, by right of my own words to a very important person, that I have a whole lot of. You see, the person who inspired this writing, which would be the third one of its kind within a week’s time, gave me, without knowing that they gave me, a challenge and the sort of challenge that I cannot deny. The challenge did not directly come from them. The challenge came from the thing that I was told, this time for the second time, and this time it is nothing that I am not taking seriously, much as I have any other time. Every time, though, when it happens that I see what I see and know what I know is the truth, I find out a whole lot about people in the lives of others who like to say they will do one thing, and end up doing the other thing, and this makes us feel really badly about who we are, simply because the thing that we trusted someone else with has become the symbol of things that hurt us.
Those things hurt us because most of the time those others have been told that maybe what we are doing is not indicative of who we are, and if we are being in the energy that carries less integrity than that which we are living in for and with ourselves, and that energy belongs to someone else, then it is at that time that we need to ask ourselves a whole lot of questions. In my case, the only one that I can ask, in terms of the thing that I am writing about and the thing that caused me to have this inspiration is the idea that when someone entrusts anyone else at all with something that they know carries meaning for anyone, it is wise to hang on to the energy that is the truth that anyone else had in us at one time.
Let it be well known right now that there are not a whole lot of people on this planet who I trust very much, and when it is that someone who I considered trustworthy has proven me otherwise, namely since it is that this person has known me long enough to know, too, that anyone who I bring to their lives with the intention of helping someone else to get what they want to get going, going, and the other person who has entered into anyone’s life by merit of their knowing me, and that person fails to live up to their end of things, I have a problem with it.
I have such a problem with it that today, for the third time this week, I am here, again, writing this blog and I am here, again, trying hard to not feel like I am drowning in my own fear, in my own depths and in my own anger that has become a sadness with a thickness like that of dense cheesecake. My sadness is for a lot of reasons, but in this instance, as I have told those who are still those who I trust, but right now, that sadness is because again, and within a short time, I am cutting ties with someone who I thought was a friend and who I trusted with anything at all, but namely their word.
The words that we speak and write are all we really have. When it is that we say anything to anyone at all, we have to take care that what we say is the truth, and what we say is meant to clarify anything to anyone else. What we are doing in that clarification is simple – we are mapping our expectations. When a transaction of any kind at all takes place, there is a certain expectation of things to happen. Let’s take money, for instance. When we are given the opportunity to make a few dollars doing the thing that we love to do the most, and when it is that an agreement has been made between two or more people in terms of that money or that exchange, all involved are expected, whether it is a signature on a document, or a handshake, or an email, or even a text or phone conversation…all parties, at that moment, are agreeing to the terms of the thing being talked about, meaning that all parties are willingly doing what they all promised that they would.
The reason that I am using money as my example, even as money, while it is important, is not the very most important thing to me, because to me it is simply a tool to get things done, is because everyone knows what money can do to people.
Money and integrity
I understand that there is a lot going on in the planetary climes right now, and that a lot of the things that we held true and as ours are slowly finding their way away from us. I am not different. Just yesterday I had to face the fact that my knee was telling me, again, that I need to just put my hula aside for a bit, and do what I do better than that – write, and research. It has become the only thing that I can turn to in terms of my own and self-imposed therapy. There is no better way for a person who has been called stupid her whole life to prove that one thing different than being the person who makes that thought in my own head no longer valid. I could easily just do something related to hula, but in doing so, all I will end up doing is bring more harm to myself. If there is anyone who does not need more emotional self harm, it is me.
I could sell out, and work with another one of those per word websites, but, that will only make me mad because I know that my words are of value to people. I have been told so. I could sell out, and get help to write web content for other weirdos, but, then I have to believe in the things that I am writing on their behalf, and there is no guarantee that I am going to be paid what I know that I am worth in terms of what I can write, what I do write, and the organic manner that is the writing that I have always done, which is straight from the soul and directly into the eyes that those words are meant for. I could do a lot of things, and yes…I am willing to state now that I am not as good as a lot of writers are, and this is the thing that I believe because the simple fact is that I do not get paid to write, at least not like I did at one time, and only because I will not sell out and take orders from people who are only looking for hits to their websites.
I might be strangling myself in being this way, but this is the way that I do things – with integrity. And I cannot be any other way. I have never been any way but this way. I might do a lot of things that a lot of “saner” people would never do, but the bottom line is that I remain with my integrity, no matter what, and under no circumstances will I allow myself to lower my standards. There are people who want to believe that I have lowered myself to what they want to believe is a level of lowered that only they can see and is about them in certain ways, but even in that thought they are incorrect – I do not see bad things in others if those bad things are not backed up with a certain level of intention. When I see that people are doing things that are going against the thing that they have agreed to, I am automatically seeing what is their intention.
Integrity and Intention
Our integrity is something that we cultivate on our own and without any help. It is brought to us by means of others who have almost no integrity. We learn who we are and who we are not, not only to others but to ourselves, through the level of integrity that others have and are willingly displaying to us through their words and their actions that they show to us. I have been shown my own level of integrity in terms of who I am, and I KNOW that I have not let myself down, meaning that I know, too, that I have not let anyone else down, namely those who are closest to me.
However, those who I thought I might be able to trust with my …trust in them…has been cracked, and in that cracking I have found that I have been duped and that the thing that will be told to me, even though I am not hearing any of it, is just these others trying hard to get around the idea that somehow, their lives are so harsh on them, that they allowed something to slip their mind, for a long time, and that they already know what it was that was so crucial to anyone else that the agreement be kept confidential, as well as said same agreement be kept, period. The reason that the agreement needed to be kept is not just the part that was the representative of the integrity – money – but the truth of the person with whom anyone would make any agreement with. Let it be known now that whenever someone makes an agreement with anyone else, that what you are exchanging is NOT tangible things, but, trust.
Trust is built upon the integrity of others
I am saying it, so deal with it – if you have been operating at less than your own self-set level of integrity, and with my assuming that your own level is as high as it ought to be, then you are not only robbing others of your own self-set goodness, but you are also robbing your damned self of it. When agreements are not kept by all sides, it makes us feel like we somehow are going to lose everything, just because one or more persons have chosen to deal with their own …less than high level of integrity that they expect others, or maybe don’t expect others to have. This is the reality that right at this moment, is mine and this is the reality that lots of people have brought to me not just in the past, but in the recent past, and this is the reality that starts a snowball effect of everything else going wrong in the lives of those whose integrity IS what it is supposed to be (and ought to be) at all times.
What this means is that say you borrowed something from someone. Let’s use clothing for this example – you borrow something that means a whole lot to someone else. You beg that person to please return your item by a specified time, and you trust this person to at least bring it back within a day or two, expecting that like all human beings, the person who is borrowing the dress to at least return it within a respectable amount of time to you.
One day, you are invited to an event that calls for something decently dressy. You call the person who borrowed the item, and they are not able to be reached, by phone, by text, and they do not respond to your emails, either. The event you have been invited to is a fundraiser, and it calls that you wear something demurely smashing, and you call the person again, and again…still, no answer.
And now, you are pissed. (OK I was pissed…keep reading…)
You think that this person has become like all others, and soon you are lumping all others into this pile of others who have less than an acceptable level of integrity. Finally, on the day of this event, you get the dress back. Not only is the dress NOT clean, there are food and wine stains on it, and the person who borrowed it is coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why they did not bring the item back, and they even have the very nerve to have an attitude with you.
Here you were, waiting all this time, knowing that you would have given back that dress in at least the same shape that you borrowed it in, and you are now upset that this person who called themselves a “good friend” has brought this item to you in the manner that they did, with the attitude that they did, and at that moment, you do not realize that you have been shown their truth.
You know it is their truth, but you do not want to believe that it is their truth. You want to see that person in the manner that you would see a stranger, because that is, in that moment, what that person becomes to you. You have experienced the truth of someone else, in this manner, and it is believable and only because the manner in which the other person has brought to you the thing that they think is the truth of you – that you would be cool with it if they didn’t bring your item back to you just the same way it was when you loaned it to them. This was not only them exposing their own truth about themselves, but also will cause any thinking human being without cause to believe otherwise (meaning that at least a return phone call or an email regarding the dress would have at least made the reason for the late return believable) that they were living up to the level of integrity that they always showed you.
Just because someone says something, unless it is that the things that they have said otherwise would tell you not to loan that dress to them, when it is loaned to them, it is you having your experience with them as the thing that caused you to borrow the dress. You wanted to believe your friend, wanted to believe that the words they told you were the truth, wanted to make certain that on both ends, you were both covered. And you did your part – you did exactly what you said you would do, and you loaned your friend that dress, which was one of your most favored ones, and you gave that friend the respect that you have always afforded them.
Then, they did not return the dress. And now you are looking at the dress in its nasty, dirty, stained and B.O. smelling state, and all you can think about at that point and after you have gone through the anger, is why it is that someone you trusted with something so valued by you would return something to you in the shape they did, having the shitty attitude they had, and expecting you to understand why they ended up being the shitty person who they were to you in returning the dress in the manner that they returned it. They gave you every excuse they could, and did not think one moment about why it is that you needed that dress back. You don’t even know why you needed it back, given that you have a closet full of dresses that could be worn to that fancy-shmancy shindig.
The reason…
The reason is simple – we know who we are, and we know that for the most part, we are who we hang with. This lends to the thing that is really bothering me and the thing that is not going to be mentioned here. Those who need to know about the exchange that I am writing about already know.
The reason why it is that anyone will do things in the manner that are less than filled with integrity is because those who are less than filled with integrity are learning that if you operate below the level of the initial exchange, and you operate in the manner that is only about your own self, without regard to what others are also going through, and you choose to do like you have in the past and disregard that perhaps what was needed was that the agreement be seen to and that the transactions be known for what they are, in black and white, so that there is a very high level of clarity.
That anyone will entrust another person with the things that they have to offer and are tangible is one thing, but, to believe that those with whom we make any agreements with are not going to mind very much if we do less than what was agreed to is believing that there truly IS beach-property in Arizona, and that dolphins can be seen frolicking in the dry lakes after a downpour in Death Valley – meaning that you are fooling yourself if you think that the person or persons who you have made any agreements with, even if they are assumed agreements and ones that are clarified at some point, and they are agreements that you looked someone else in the eye and made, and you, yourself, were not in the middle of a pot of shit soup that life threw at you…
…I have beach front property in Kingman, Arizona….
(Ummm…no…no I do not….that would be a lie….I do not lie…)
If you want other people to live up to the standard of integrity that you know you operate at, demand it, even silently. Become that loud voice, the one that rings only in the thoughts and the halls of people who need to feel badly, even though they obviously don’t, for real, about the way that they would assume anyone would be “cool with it” if an agreement has not been kept. Agreements are not only those things that we deal with in business, but also in life. When someone is depending on your integrity to make the words that you speak become the actual truth, it means that they have entrusted you to keep your word and to live up to what you were entrusted with…
…which is not those who you want understanding why it is that you have nothing but excuses (because even silence is very telling), even though you have the means to return a dress, or return borrowed money, but you actually telling them what you think of them, and what you think of you. If you have no issues that are truly pressing right this moment, and you know that you have the means to return the proverbial dress, then fucking do it already…
Your integrity is already showing, because of the silence…
(I really loved that dress…)
The Mana'o Blog 