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Sunday, December 9, 2007

A Question of Integrity!











Integrity: moral uprightness; honesty; wholeness; soundness.


In God’s view, human beings are simply one of many species placed on earth as part of the Big Picture. We are driven in large measure by instinct, as are the other species, however; we tend to think that as human beings we are at the top of the chain. That we have Dominion over all things. We think we are superior over all in the animal and plant kingdom because we have the power to reason, and we have the triad of intellect, integrity, and morality to guide us.

I’m not so certain that we are entitled to our lofty assessment of ourselves, especially when we take a close look at many in the animal kingdom. In their world the worst of human behaviour is non-existent, and much of our best is even better represented.

I want to focus on this question of the conduct of male behaviour in the context of morality and integrity because this is one area where we need a lot of help. As an example, let’s say that the girl is angry with her boyfriend or husband, so to get back at him she uses his brother by offering her body to him. The amazing thing is that in probably the majority of these examples he will accept.

Where is his sense of integrity? How is he able to so easily set aside his moral sense? Of course it’s wrong! He knows it’s wrong, so why not just say no and walk away in disgust?

I have a theory when it comes to establishing a criteria to govern whom I may, or may not sleep with: If I allow a man to call me his friend, under no circumstances would I even consider making a move on his woman. Certainly, any man to whom I am blood related as brother, cousin, or uncle, puts his woman off-limits, even if they have split up.

If your woman is beautiful, charming, alluring and seductive, I can recognize all those things, but my sense of integrity and morality tell me to stay away. I owe the man, who I call my friend a debt of honour, and the momentary enjoyment I might get from being intimate with his woman is simply not enough to soothe my conscience. I have to live with that for life.

I’m not saying that it is easy to make such decisions when you have a woman saying “come hither big boy, I’m yours!” But integrity is at its best when under pressure. We get our sense of self-esteem when we are put to the test and we pass. We can dine out on stories of the time when the temptation was so great, but we successfully resisted. We tell no one if we caved in to it.

How important is self-esteem? That’s the element in our lives from which we decide whether we like ourselves the way we are, or whether we feel that we don’t deserve happiness and respect. There are many among us who lead double lives. On the one hand they hold themselves out as paragons of virtue while at the same time hiding a very shadowy other life. Such people are set up for a fall when the truth comes out. They must surely know that the day will come.

Having said all the above, there is one circumstance that counts sort of as the exception to the rule and which affects far more people than might be expected. That is the situation where one half of a couple finds that their basic, fundamental human needs are not being met by their partner over a significant period of time, either out of hostility, apathy, or physical inability, and the future holds no promise that things will improve. Normally, this could be an end-of-the-road scenario.

But what if it’s not possible for the injured party to walk away? The choices are (a) Stay, sacrifice and suffer in silence while life passes by; (b) Leave anyway, and hang the consequences; (c) demand from the partner at fault permission to meet your needs, by any means possible. Simply put, the partner at fault gives that permission by not holding up their end of the bargain anyway, as it is unreasonable to expect anything else.

As for the injured party, they exhibit a high degree of integrity by staying, when they should go in pursuit of personal happiness.

There is a growing trend among couples to find a solution within the home. Rather than simply throwing away all that they have built up, through understanding and love they work to hold it together. The formula allows for the person in need to receive the attention that is missing from their life. The personal ads show several invitations from couples looking for a man or a woman to come into their home to be a part of the family.

This is a brave new world within which we live, but if we can be as mature as this to solve our problems, we need have no worries about our integrity.


Copyright © 2007 Eugene Carmichael