Thought – Sillyfrog's Blog

The noun INTEGRITY has 2 senses: 1. an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting
2. moral soundness

The word of the day is integrity.

As my mind wandered (it’s never home), I was enjoying the anticipation of this Monday’s Trivial Pursuit Tournament. My sister and I have the day off in celebration of our April birthdays. (2 days apart)

As luck would have it, I had found out that a few of my friends have the day off too. Donna and I would have fun playing Trivial Pursuit alone, but a tournament with Chinese take-out and Twisted teas, on the side, sounded even better.

So it’s set. Monday we’ll be having a real party.

My next thought, there will be 5 of us. I would propose that the “Birthday Girls” take on the “Guests”. As the home team, we will play with the game that my sister and I have used about 3 other times.

Thought: There may be a question that I have already had in a game played before. What will I do? With hardly any hesitation, I’d reveal this to the guests and ask for a different one.

Thought: How many other people would do the same if the predicament was theirs?

Thought: Why do some people play fair and others “cheat”, especially when they won’t likely get caught?

Integrity is, after all, a selfish thing. Yup, it is a good feeling that we give ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less. The lack of it in society today seems to support those alarming statements. Somehow, people have lost the ability to feel “good” about being moral, not all of them, but an alarming number of them. What we do when no one is watching is ultimately our true measure. My grandfather told me that when he operated the telegraph office, alone, at the railroad, his boss would stop by and profess his visit was to, “keep an honest man, honest.”

We all like to think we are moral and “good”. William J. Bennet (The Moral Compass) so well stated, “Integrity comes with practice. By making moral choices, over and over.”

So, who really benefits from integrity. The person who has it reaps the biggest reward, therefore, it IS selfish.

Definition of SELFISH

: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

: arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others <a selfish act>

: being an actively replicating repetitive sequence of nucleic acid that serves no known function <selfish DNA>; also : being genetic material solely concerned with its own replication <selfish genes>

— self·ish·ly adverb

— self·ish·ness noun

Okay…I’m trying to be thought-provoking. In all honesty, isn’t life about self.

Doesn’t the hero who charges into a burning building do it because he/she needs to, in order to live with themselves?

They ultimately choose the lesser of two evils: Cowardice and nightmares OR burns/death and freedom from guilt.

It seems to be like the scientific principle of every force being a push. Even when you think you are “pulling” the Radio Flyer by the handle, aren’t you really pushing on the inside of the handle to move it?

SO, You have wandered awhile with my mind. You are on your own now…I have dishes to do. 🙂

BTW- Isn’t it fun when you press spell check and the message “no writing errors” pops up? A good feeling that we, once again, usually only experience alone. Have a good day!