4/22/2010
Applied Ethics

What Does it Mean to Have Integrity

The dictionary describes integrity as being unimpaired, unadulterated, or genuine state; entire correspondence with an original condition; purity. But in layman terms, integrity means to be who you are regardless if someone is watching you or not. Being true to one’s self, values, beliefs and morals is vital on the religious viewpoint. Integrity is how we decide to live our life. In our lifetime we will be faced with decisions only we can make ourselves. Only we can decide how we live our lives, and the decision we make defines us as. Integrity is doing the right thing opposed to doing the wrong thing. Integrity builds character and helps us develop values. This is an important quality to have because most people are looking for a trust-worthy leader. Integrity starts in the home. I grew up with great parents who taught me morals and values. They taught me to love all mankind regardless of their social issue. These lessons they taught me involved trust, respect, and integrity. They told me these characteristics were good to have, when I was young I didn’t understand why they was telling me this, but now that I am a man I understand perfectly. I believe all children should be exposed to integrity at an early age to develop personal growth. I also believe integrity should be taught in the schools, because some children don’t have parents to teach them right from wrong. I bring up school because this is where your integrity is tested at the earliest. Promoting early development of ethical values in children educates a child to live an honorable life. Children at school try to test you with different kinds of negative peer pressures which sometimes pull us to forget how we was raised and our values, beliefs and morals are soon gone. It is our duty to be strong and courageous to do what is right. The decline of moral teaching is evident in all the crimes committed by the youth, because they lacked positive leaders in their lives. I always handle a situation even as a child by asking myself, “Would my mother be disappointed?” By me doing this I have never been jail or major trouble. Even at a young age I have never been easily influenced by my peers. I always try to keep wise and positive people in my life. I can not stand foolish people. I always have been a leader never a follower. When we seek approval from our peers and trade our values and beliefs, most times there are terrible consequences afterwards. Most people try to please others to try to fit in because they have something that we want and we think we must be as they want us. In my opinion that’s not the proper way of thinking. To obtain great things we must let go of the foolish or negative things and people in our lives. Bad behavior prevents us from achieving our desires and goals. Allowing others to determine our values and morals will hinder the person that we are capable of becoming. I have met people that deem that lying is acceptable if it’s to achieve a person goal. But I have been taught even though others I that I come across may not seem ethical, they have their right to choose what’s right for them. Some people are reluctant to lose or do whatever it takes to be happy regardless of whom they may have to step on, or if they have to lie, cheat, or steal, to achieve a goal. I prefer to lose than lie, cheat, steal in order to win. But I believe dishonesty is never the route to go just achieve your goals. Integrity is not just tested in the school, it is tested everywhere. But I believe it still goes back to how you were raised. For example I was in the store one day; an elder lady had dropped her wallet. The integrity and the morals my mother and father taught me caused me to find the lady and return her wallet. She was so delighted to see her wallet she gave me twenty dollars. As you can see sometimes you can be awarded for doing what is right. If I didn’t return the wallet the lady, for the rest of the day I feel guilty and just dirty honestly. Another example was when I was working at a janitorial service, and most times any employee who found a lost item kept it. One evening I was cleaning and a wallet was found again. My other co workers who saw the wallet as well looked inside the wallet to see if any money. They all confirmed there was large amounts of money inside, I told them to leave it alone and should return to the rightful owner. Of course everyone looked at me like yeah right. They all split the money and asked do I want a cut, I said no. The reason I said no goes back to what my parents taught me. And I asked myself, “Would my mother be disappointed?” I knew she would which made me even want to refrain more from what the other employees were doing. It was crazy because the whole act was caught on tape and all were terminated but me. I feel regardless of your profession, you should always be ethical. Sorry I was born as a person with a conscience. In my opinion it is sickening that most people do not possess integrity. Integrity is something that means a lot to some people and then nothing at all to others. People you value their integrity as usually honest individuals and should have more people who possess this characteristic in our lives. People today are so much interested in greed and don’t care who they step on to be victorious. If there was more integrity in the world you wouldn’t have worry about others taking advantage of you. If people possessed more integrity the world would be a better place. That is what integrity means to me.