Falling From Grace

I first want to apologize to those of you that enjoy my work for my recent hiatus. I have been struggling with finding my balance for the last 32 years, so now I am practicing what I preach, so I took a few days off.

I feel compelled to write about Integrity. It has been a very common theme lately in my microcosm of my life all the way up to the macrocosm of the massive problems in the country/world that are approaching a tipping point.

Integrity is defined as "a firm adherence to a code, especially that of moral values" or "the quality or state of being complete or undivided". I would argue that every singe one of you reading this currently has or had some sort of imbalance in your life. I have found that personally, every time I have felt this "imbalance" it is because I am living outside of my personal "Integrity" or my core belief system. This can be small stuff that we aren't even conscious of, like shopping at a large corporation that does not operate within or close to your personal value system.

Let me relate this through a personal story. Let's say that my husband and I worked for a company for several years that we deeply believed in. It was a rare company in today's world that regardless of it's size and growth, the corporation and leaders made every decision weighing the pros and cons, and making conscious decisions that best met the needs of the Team Members and the Consumers. Yes, we all need a little profit at the end of the day to continue our pursuit of happiness, and that happiness is spread by helping others by building them up, which is why to this corporation, it was important to keep the Team Members top of mind. 

Let me make it very clear that "profit" is not a dirty word. There are some leaders and business owners in this world that do have "wealth" but consciously choose to use their wealth to spread joy, and to uplift the "down and out".

Let's say that somewhere, somehow, this company got lost in the greed that is oh-so-appealing in today's modern world. We all have a hedonistic side that operates purely out of instinct, so of course it is possible to fall from grace, so to speak. 

From that one "tipping point" of indiscretion, and operating outside of integrity, the whole balance of good and integrity is thrown out of balance. The company gets  taken over slowly by leaders that do not value the company's system of integrity. And all the Team Members that lived, breathed, and believed the philosophy of "goodness" and integrity start feeling out of balance because deep down, they know they are no longer supporting the greater good. They start to realize they feel so lost and out of balance because they are not living their "personal truth" of system of integrity. As humans, we understand very clearly the concept of "if you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem", even though sometimes we choose to turn off our inner voice of truth.

The antonyms of integrity are: badness, evil, inequity, sin, and wickedness. I have found that evil is not the man in black standing in a dark alley. Evil, wickedness, sin, etc. are very real and presented today in very shiny, pretty, well-spoken packages. The state of your life today is a reflection of the choices you decided to make in the past. Ultimately, if you choose to be "whole" and live your truth, you can control your own destiny.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Find your truth and live it fully!
K

PS - I haven't forgotten about the request...It's in the works!