Responsibility. Honesty. Integrity.

I have always considered myself a  responsible adult.  I pay my bills. I pay my taxes. I obey traffic laws (most of the time :)). I teach when I am scheduled to teach. I complete real estate transactions ethically and properly.  I show up to appointments on time.  I'm responsible, right? Or am I?

Responsibility: A duty or obligation to satisfactorily perform or complete a task (assigned by someone, or created by one's own promise or circumstances) that one must fulfill, and which has a consequent penalty for failure.

According to this definition I am not always acting responsibly when I do not fulfill my promises to myself by not exercising or eating too much or the wrong foods. This doesn't mean that you are irresponsible if you eat the wrong thing, but it does (in my interpretation) mean that one is not acting responsibly and taking responsibility when one eats something or does not do something that they said they would do. I guess I need to work on this. Oh my!

I have also considered myself to be a pretty honest person. I tell the truth - most of the time. Ah ha! Most of the time. And, that is just to others. I may have said that I didn't feel well because I didn't want to meet someone for lunch or go to work out. I may have said that I ate well all week, except one meal, but it didn't show up on the scale. So, was I being honest with myself? With others? Oh boy! This really got me thinking. So, I also looked up the definition of honesty.

Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness, including straightforwardness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.  Furthermore, honesty means being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.

Oh dear! Am I not an honest person? I know I would never steal or purposefully hurt anyone. But, would I tell I white lie? Am I straightforward? Do I have integrity? I do most of the time. But, do I have it to myself? Then I looked up the word Integrity.

Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,^[1] in that integrity regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

The word "integrity" stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete).^[2] In this context, integrity is the inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others "have integrity" to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

In looking at these definitions  -  am I able to answer for my conduct and obligations. Do I act according to my beliefs? I think I do a good job on answering for my obligations, and my conduct in most instances. But, am I acting responsibly to myself when I don't go to my workout?  I know I should workout, but why don't I sometimes? No integrity to myself? Am I acting responsibly when I blame someone else for my eating pizza and drinking wine on Friday nights? The other day I realized that although I am responsible and honest in many ways - I am also very irresponsible and not honest in other ways, and often lack integrity.

This realization affected me profoundly. All of the sudden I feel like I am a fraud. I'm not consistent in my beliefs. I make up stories to cover for my lack of integrity to myself. I make up lies around weight release. Some mental changes need to be made. I don't know about you, but I can sure see that my lack of taking responsibility for my actions, not being honest with myself and not living in integrity and being consistent in my beliefs is definitely hindering me in reaching my goals. Hmmmmm....this is a lot to ponder.

How about you? Are you responsible? Are you honest with yourself? Are you living in integrity?

I will definitely be doing some soul searching and re-direction of my patterns in order to get myself back into a state of personal integrity.

How about you?

This quote says it all -"Integrity is doing the right thing - even when no one else is watching."

From now on I am thinking that I should act like the world is watching me ALWAYS!