fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com article, pexels.com rawpixel photo credit
January 28, 2019,
Experiments that speak to your character and integrity are best designed when you can read the results, but have absolutely no idea who wrote the review.
One of the few rules ahead of time is that the reviewers of your character should have worked with you for an extensive amount of time and have no personal grudge or close alliance with you.
It would be very revealing what they would have to say about you.
What is integrity exactly?
At the dictionary vocabulary.com they explain, “Having integrity means doing the right thing in a reliable way. It’s a personality trait that we admire, since it means a person has a moral compass that doesn’t waver. It literally means having “wholeness” of character.”
That is a pretty high bar.
Let’s seek out another definition.
The always reliable team at merriam-webster.com shares, “Integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility, or pledge.”
Excellent definitions both.
Why don’t we examine why your personal integrity is so important, especially in our tumultuous time period.
In a July 19, 2017 article in Psychology Today, Mr. Leon F. Seltzer Ph.D. explains, “Perhaps the most important thing you possess is your integrity. It’s your word of honor—what makes you honorable.”
When you think about it, integrity in effect becomes your personal brand or logo. In some ways it defines you as a more or less desirable product. It mirrors who you are like a shadow.
Recently the integrity of the National Football League took a severe hit.
On January 20, 2019 the Los Angeles Rams outlasted the New Orleans Saints, 26-23 in overtime and now they’re headed to Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII.
In terms of integrity, the issue was that a flag was not called near the end of the game when the Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman clearly committed a foul, which he was later fined for by the NFL, on New Orleans Saints receiver Tommy Lee Lewis, preventing him from making a catch that would have essentially ended the game in the Saints favor.
We saw three reasons to throw a flag.
First the defensive back never turned around to look at the ball, essentially engaging in face guarding.
Second it was a helmet to helmet hit.
Third he hit the receiver before he could catch the ball.
There were three reasons for a flag to be thrown and yet none was. It was mind bending and boggling at the same time.
The question that everyone is asking over and over is why wasn’t a flag thrown, especially in such a massive historical moment?
Yes historical. Why?
Think about the future statistics that will forever be altered lending to the notation of an asterisk.
When you rank the NFL Head Coaches in terms of excellence by the number of times they led a team to the Super Bowl, does the coach who has the same number as New Orleans Coach Sean Payton, who was robbed of one, rank above or below him?
What about quarterbacks?
The strongest measure of a quarterback’s greatness after he retires is how many Super Bowls did he lead his team to and how many times did he win?
Where does Saints quarterback Drew Brees rank on that list since one Super Bowl that he should have gone to has been erased from his resume?
We sense you could come up with your own lists.
If done accurately all of those lists will be ridden with asterisks.
The effect that it had on one person in our circle is that he is not going to watch 2019’s Super Bowl.
In protest?
Absolutely not. It has nothing to do with that. If he behaved that way in protest, it would mean that the NFL games are very significant to his life and they just aren’t.
He won’t watch it because he feels it’s not real.
The Los Angeles Rams are clearly not the best team representing the NFC and they really did not qualify to be awarded the championship trophy to go there so the end result of the Super Bowl is a farce.
It simply is not real in any way. So now it is no longer interesting. There will also be a feeling that given the money involved that we as the average Joe will never know the real reason why that flag was not thrown. It was two obvious on three levels that it should have.
Now are we to believe the NFL is starting to be as believable as big time wrestling?
Integrity is incredibly invaluable.
What happens when governments start to lose their integrity and laws are not upheld and justice is not performed?
People and groups begin to take matters into their own hands. It is how civil wars and revolutions start with the strong possibility that thousands to millions of people will die.
Let us not stray though.
Integrity is ultimately about the elements of our personal character that we can control.
While we may be aware there seems to be a dearth of integrity with politicians and governments around the world, we cannot control their behavior.
We can control ours.
“The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”… Confucius
In our dealings with others, are we honest? Trustworthy? Reliable?
Do we actively look for solutions to problems that we are responsible for or that emanate from us or do we blame others?
Do we have pride in our own personal brand? The answer to that question goes a long way towards what we see when we look in the mirror.
Perhaps one of the reasons why we love cartoon characters so much is that they can be perfect.
Human beings are flawed and even with their best efforts, their integrity can be called into question because of their past mistakes and weaknesses.
The cartoon character on the other hand can be written to be flawless. That’s why they are Super Heroes.
Rachel Dawes is a fictional character who first appeared in Christopher Nolan’s 2005 feature film Batman Begins.
Of all of the actresses that played the character Rachel Dawes in the Batman series, we liked Katie Holmes performance the best. Why?
Because she seemed to portray integrity so honestly. She was believable. It was not just what she said, it was how she said it. It was the inflection in her voice and the look in her eye.
While we cannot be as perfect as cartoon characters, we can certainly learn from them.
Integrity is very personal.
It is about rightful decision making on a day to day basis. One decision at a time.
Keeping ours is worth the effort.
“Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.”… H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Once you have lost your integrity in the eyes of others, it is hard to get it back.
If you lose your integrity in front of your children, it is very hard for them to ever respect and see you the same way again.
Ultimately in this life, while it is important what others think about us, most important, in the privacy of our thoughts, it is what we think about ourselves.
~ ~ ~
OPENING PHOTO pexels.com rawpixel photo credit
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/integrity
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrity
https://sports.yahoo.com/troy-aikman-talks-rams-vs-191525777.html
