Do you have Integrity and are you trustworthy?

Written by Jamie Bessette

Have you ever known somebody who isn’t good for their word? Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you're one of those people and don't realize it! Just for clarity I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you take your car to get new tires and the person in the shop says it will be ready tomorrow at noon. You take a few hours off of work and find a ride to shop at noon the next day only to find out the car is not ready. When we were having our house repaired due to the deck being improperly installed the contractor didn’t show up for 3 weeks at one point.

These are the things that make people really mad, I was really mad! Let’s bring it down to a smaller situation. Let’s say you tell your kids you’ll watch a movie with them tonight and then you don’t because you decided to go out with some friends, the hurt is similar.

According to dictionary.com the definition of integrity is: adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

We have a saying in our house, it goes something like this: “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” That’s our family’s definition of integrity.

If you went to school anytime from 1990 on you were taught some form of “character traits” lessons. If you weren’t let me quickly describe what you missed. Since I became a teacher we had to teach students character traits such as respect, responsibility, citizenship, honesty, fairness etc. I guess the purpose of this was to teach students skills that they were not coming to school already having learned. Most schools eventually narrowed these down to: be respectful, be responsible and be safe. (Pretty much every character trait can fall under respect and responsibility during a behavior discussion.)

Lately though I have been thinking about integrity. Are you who you say you are? If you say you're a runner but you never run then really, are you a runner? Maybe you have all the gear and read running magazines, does that make you a runner? If you say you are a kind person but then look for a way to cheat people out of stuff or yell at people, are you kind? If you lie then are you an honest person? Are you following me here?

Being honest brings me to my next topic trustworthy. Trust is a huge thing that takes forever to build and can be knocked down in a moment. The rate at which people build trust varies by the person. Some kids I’ve worked with, who come from “healthy” (in my view no home is 100% perfect) homes tend to trust very quickly. Kids who come to me having been seriously abused, trust may take years.

Due to the nature of my work and the intensity of it for so many years, I am very slow to trust. I watch people’s integrity very closely and frankly there are some people I will never trust.

When it comes to myself and always trying to be the best person I can be, I do an integrity check daily. Am I “Saying what I mean and meaning what I say?” If I say I am a runner do I go running? It’s sort of like holding yourself accountable to the goals you are creating.

Why are these traits so important? As an adult this is the skills that make you valuable at work and with your friends. It’s also the question you can ask yourself when things seem out of balance. If you don’t like the answers you come with, change your behavior. In the end you are responsible for you and only you can make sure you are living the life you want to live. Teaching this to your children will give them a strategy to assess their life and make changes.