Why I think Integrity is important!
You know confidence is very important for a person in their life. How confident you are, impacts almost everything in your life. It is something that reflects in your personality. And what is more important is being self-confident. If you don't believe in yourself, then life my friend is going to be tough. I have come to realize that self-confidence needs to come from within and cannot be based on your validation by other people in life.
I have been struggling with this for a while. I have always felt like an under-confident person most of my adult life. It's not like I shy away from conversations or am socially awkward. I am actually pretty social, more so when I am a little comfortable with my surroundings.
My self-confidence right now is shaky at best. It is extremely fragile and can tumble with the tiniest of puffs of air. If you've ever played one of those games that require you to make a building and when you go really high and/or misplace a house, your entire building starts dwindling. That is how I feel sometimes. One puff and the entire thing comes crashing down. I think it has something to do with being constantly "advised' to change myself or being disapproved of more often than not by people you trust. And others follow suit because of course let's just follow the bigger piece of the pie.
And then, of course, integrity goes flying out the window, so nobody dares to speak what they actually think, scared of losing the validation others are giving them. Integrity is something that is very important to me. If you aren't honest with yourself and live up to those few rules you've made for yourself, my friend you are in a worse position than me. Just the other day I was looking up books on deception and deductive reasoning, and I came across an interesting book titled "The Truth about trust" by David DeSteno. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. But I remember reading something about it that resonated with me very well. It said that even though integrity is very important, people don't care much for it at a personal cost. Simply meaning that you don't care about being truthful if it is going to bite you in the ass. And believe me, I have seen real-life examples. There were people in my life, who claimed certain things very strongly, but when the time came to actually stand up for what they themselves believe in, they decided to take the easier route and just go with the flow. This was a huge shock for me because for me standing for what I think and believe in is more important than any amount validation anyone could ever give me.
I would rather have my self-confidence dwindling in the air from time to time than being dishonest with myself or claim to be a certain way just to get a smidge of attention. I don't know how I got here, I was talking about my self-confidence and ended up talking about the importance of integrity in life. And you know the main reason, I am stressing on this point is because it might be very easy for you to lie to others and yourself now when you are surrounded by a hoard of people. But you know what, not now, not in a year or maybe even 10 years, the hoard is going to disperse. And I don't mean it in the people will leave you sense, but in the sense that there will be a time in your life when you will have to live with just yourself. You will have to think about the things you have done and the decision you have made in life and the person you have become along the way, and you better be prepared to like that person. Because we don't change drastically one fine day, it happens over time, probably when you aren't paying close attention. So at least try to stick to the few things that you, yourself believe in and stand up for them. Don't run after external validation. Validation has to come from within.
This is a very bizarre post, I know. But I have tried to write about something that I strongly feel about. Think about it and the decision you are making in life.
I have been struggling with this for a while. I have always felt like an under-confident person most of my adult life. It's not like I shy away from conversations or am socially awkward. I am actually pretty social, more so when I am a little comfortable with my surroundings.
My self-confidence right now is shaky at best. It is extremely fragile and can tumble with the tiniest of puffs of air. If you've ever played one of those games that require you to make a building and when you go really high and/or misplace a house, your entire building starts dwindling. That is how I feel sometimes. One puff and the entire thing comes crashing down. I think it has something to do with being constantly "advised' to change myself or being disapproved of more often than not by people you trust. And others follow suit because of course let's just follow the bigger piece of the pie.
And then, of course, integrity goes flying out the window, so nobody dares to speak what they actually think, scared of losing the validation others are giving them. Integrity is something that is very important to me. If you aren't honest with yourself and live up to those few rules you've made for yourself, my friend you are in a worse position than me. Just the other day I was looking up books on deception and deductive reasoning, and I came across an interesting book titled "The Truth about trust" by David DeSteno. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. But I remember reading something about it that resonated with me very well. It said that even though integrity is very important, people don't care much for it at a personal cost. Simply meaning that you don't care about being truthful if it is going to bite you in the ass. And believe me, I have seen real-life examples. There were people in my life, who claimed certain things very strongly, but when the time came to actually stand up for what they themselves believe in, they decided to take the easier route and just go with the flow. This was a huge shock for me because for me standing for what I think and believe in is more important than any amount validation anyone could ever give me.
I would rather have my self-confidence dwindling in the air from time to time than being dishonest with myself or claim to be a certain way just to get a smidge of attention. I don't know how I got here, I was talking about my self-confidence and ended up talking about the importance of integrity in life. And you know the main reason, I am stressing on this point is because it might be very easy for you to lie to others and yourself now when you are surrounded by a hoard of people. But you know what, not now, not in a year or maybe even 10 years, the hoard is going to disperse. And I don't mean it in the people will leave you sense, but in the sense that there will be a time in your life when you will have to live with just yourself. You will have to think about the things you have done and the decision you have made in life and the person you have become along the way, and you better be prepared to like that person. Because we don't change drastically one fine day, it happens over time, probably when you aren't paying close attention. So at least try to stick to the few things that you, yourself believe in and stand up for them. Don't run after external validation. Validation has to come from within.
This is a very bizarre post, I know. But I have tried to write about something that I strongly feel about. Think about it and the decision you are making in life.
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