The focus for the 31st week (July 21 – August 6) of the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge was:
Your Core Value
Weeks back, I talked about honesty being my favorite personality trait. While I would like to talk about honesty being my core value, I have already done that. You can read that post here: Honesty Remains my Best Policy. So today, I will be talking about integrity, or transparency, as I like to call it.
They say that integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. I do agree with this. But from a young age, I have always had a different definition for integrity.
My Old Definition of Integrity
I still think of integrity in the same way though, but let me know what you think. To me, integrity was having to balls to say you stole, if you get caught stealing. To me, integrity was saying things exactly as they are.
While a person of integrity is most likely not to steal, we as humans are not perfect. Even so, I believe that a person of integrity takes responsibility for their actions. That means own up (take responsibility) when caught. This is not exactly a good example, but this was how I thought about integrity years ago.
What About Now?
Today, I do agree that integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. That to me, is stopping by a red traffic light, even when there is no traffic. That to me, is paying your tax, even when it seems like you can skip paying, and go scot-free.
To me, is also about transparency or homogeneity. Even the word itself sounds like it… oneness. That means, you, your character, your personality, should be same, from different perspectives. That means your core values can determine how you behave in different circumstances.
To me means that if we call 10 random people who know you, they can pretty much say the same things about you. It doesn’t matter if they say positive or negative things, but they should all correlate. One person should not describe you as this, and another person describes you as the opposite. That is not integrity, as far as I am concerned.
I Am An Open Book
For years now, I have lived a transparent life. We all have secrets, and so do I. But, I am generous with sharing my life with others. I tell people things as they are, making my life like an open book. I give honest answers to direct questions. That way, every one knows the same answer to the same questions that are asked me.
So that’s it… What’s your core value?
Please share in the comments section below.
7 things I was grateful for during the 31st week of this 52 weeks of gratitude challenge:
- I managed to resolve the SSL issue for ChowHub. Now we have SSL 🙂
- Thank God I started malaria treatment early enough… I’m already starting to feel better
- I got back some money that Gallium borrowed, thank God and thanks to popsi
- Moved on to the next phase of ChowHub 2.0
- I’ve been battling with some Laravel scripts since last week, but thank God I was able to solve the issue and move ahead on the project today! For a moment there, I was starting to feel incompetent lol
- Thank God for safe journey for the Okotogbo siblings from Kokori to Benin
- I got some sleep today, and managed to do some work on the Ejum Global project
View last week’s post: