30 Prompts for Reflection on Your Integrity The word integrity is related to the roots of words like “integrate” and “entire,” and its Latin root means “wholeness.” Integrity thus implies the state of being complete, undivided, intact, and unbroken. Such a state contrasts with one that is scattered, fragmented, and incomplete. When you profess to one principle, but act in a way contrary to it; when you say you’ll do something, but fail to fulfill that promise; when you disregard a business’s or your employer’s rules, even though you implicitly agreed to them in using its service and taking your job; when you act one way as an anonymous avatar online, and another in real life — in short, when you treat others in a way you wouldn’t want to be treated yourself — you create a rupture, a rift, in your character. You divide one part of yourself from another. In contrast, when you act in line with your conscience, and follow the golden rule, your life becomes a consistent, unified whole. Integrity is really the bond that holds a person’s other virtues together; it is the mark of a person who has successfully integrated all good principles. Integrity has become confused and diluted over the years and the test questions offered in the linked article at http://ift.tt/2u2hRLd really do serve to bring it back into focus. Failing some of these questions actually crosses the line and becomes criminal fraud.
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