Internal Integrity
Honesty is one of the most powerful tools for personal growth, but it requires a deep commitment to integrity—something I've struggled with and continue to build every day.
I question this a lot because of the people I meet in Tampa. I feel like I am always talking to people who do not care what it means to be honest. It seems like people say one thing and then immediately do another. I have found that people only like to live up to something if it benefits them.
It seems no one wants to be honest, they want to start drama and be up in your business. However, they cannot even grow their garden. It saddens me to see, it just seems like they live a lonelier existence. It also is very short-sighted. They cannot begin to delay gratification and play for the long term. They only want something for the here and now. I wonder if this is part of the victim mentality culture. It seems everyone wants to call out your bullshit, but never want to work on themselves.
How are you going to tell me what to do when you cannot even keep yourself afloat? I think today the value of your word is becoming increasingly valuable. Some people think everyone is a mark and I have met a few in this city. I realize I was bad at spotting it. People were taking advantage of me left and right and I was letting them. At some point, I realized that if I wanted them to stop doing it, I would have to stand my ground. What I found is, that when I started to say no people started to act different to me. They started to treat me as if I was ending their world, but I just started to say no to the little things. People thought I was doing it to be an asshole, I just felt a little lost, and instead of continuing down that hole, I took control of it. This is still something I do not understand about people I meet, especially people with low agency. Nothing makes me angrier than someone who doesn't take control of their actions. Probably because I still need work on that myself and I see and bit of myself in them. The reason I started saying no was because I felt like I was losing my word. I was feeling very stretched thin by all the obligations. I was giving them to other people and the obligations to myself were falling through the cracks. I was so wrapped up in being a part of something, I was left alone.
I think having a word means a lot, at least to me. Think about it, if they can't trust your no how in the world are they going to trust your yes?
I was always a chronic liar when I was a kid. It was always the small things that added up to the big things. I talk about it in depth in my monthly articles on the stuff I used to lie about. That sort of prompted me to ask the question how I increase my internal integrity? As I begin to reflect on the year I am revisiting old habits that I wanted to keep for myself. The big one was to try my absolute hardest to not lie. I am not going to sit here and say that I did not lie all year, because I know I did. However, what I found is that once I started not lying to other people. I started to not lie to myself, I began to trust in my word more. My words became more valuable. I think that concept is something I am trying to build up right now. How do I value my word? Currently, I tend to say no to things I do not want to do. Which may make people angry, but I think it tends to mean more when I say yes. It puts more stock in the things you agree to.
I think a way to speed up the process of integrity is to begin self-development. I would say my journey started around 2 years ago when I started to take reading seriously. My goal in 2022 was to read 1 book a month (keep in mind I hated reading. I lied about my reading in school). I started to read books that I found interesting and not books that were forced on me. That changed my view on it. Then in 2023, my goal was 24 books, so two books a month. I just started to find that the more I read the more I liked. I started with business books because that is what I was interested in. Then I started to branch out into psychology, sociology, and science (I pretty much stick to non-fiction, minus the occasional Paulo Coelho novel). I have been obsessed with obtaining knowledge and using it to leverage the world around me. After all this reading I started to juxtapose myself with people I would meet. I think that ultimately made me start caring about my word. I would see a lot of people around me lie and cheat to get what they want. They would say one thing to someone and then a complete 180 to another. I just found it so appalling. I found it appalling because on some level I saw myself in them, I was so judgmental towards them because deep down I hated myself for still lying.
It is a constant battle for me when it comes to keeping my word. At this stage in my life, I am pursuing keeping my word. I am trying to not let anyone falter or fracture that. If I do not want to do something I will be honest with them, instead of making up some excuse we both know is a lie. What I have found is that it comes with a lot of hate, but it is liberating.