A number of years ago, a friend of mine and her husband built their dream home.
It was beautiful! Everything they had ever wanted.
When the rains came however, their basement began to flood and the stability of their entire home was threatened because the integrity of the foundation had been compromised when the builder decided to take a shortcut when laying that foundation.
It was devastating for them.
Integrity – the state of being whole and undivided, honesty, uprightness, honour, principles, morals and ethics.Integrity – trustworthy.
When the integrity of anything is compromised, it impacts everything around it.
There used to be a saying that went something like this, “You are only as good as your word”…Its sole purpose was to motivate you to keep your word because you wanted to be known as reliable and trustworthy. A person of integrity.
Your words and your accompanying deeds, revealed someone who could be trusted or someone people should shie away from.
This purpose of this saying is quite lost now as a generation seeks to convince one another through the power of the descriptive word.
Daily we are confronted by advertising that declares boldly, “the world’s no.1…(whatever they are trying to sell)” – Was there a worldwide competition that none of us knows about?
How about – “all overlooking a sparkling pool” and the pool in the picture is green OR “Hollywood garages” – I have been in Hollywood, their garages look pretty much like ours.
They smile at you, look you right in the eyes and promise this and that and you believe them.
You are relieved because he is such a nice guy and you are so glad that you are doing business with him. Until the deal is signed…
Through the power of the word, we have become a generation of manipulators.
The problem with all of this is that we have deceived even ourselves into thinking that the words that we speak are really who we are.
The truth is that it is by our deeds that we are really known.
What we do, speaks louder than any fancy words we may utter.
So who are we really? When people speak our name, is it with respect or honour?
May the way we live our lives speak loudly of the fact that we are a people that can be trusted.
From my heart to yours,
XXX
Sylvia
