Tag Archives: integrity

Holding Secrets

Leave a reply

We all have secrets, things we are told in complete confidence.

Secrets are a privilege to be heard. Hold on to them and you are a trusted, valued friend. Integrity is understanding how to keep a secrets to yourself.

The easiest way you can think of it is, ‘This story is not mine to tell.”

And the follow through is simply not telling the story, the secret to anyone. Trust is earned, integrity is built from consistency, and friendship is enriched from holding things in confidence.

If you can’t hold a secret, you are a gossip, not a friend. If you can’t hold a secret, you also can’t meaningfully call yourself a friend.

What inspired me to share this idea? I can’t say… it’s not my story to tell.

A Quote on Judgement

“We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.”

I saw this quote and wondered who said it? I was lead by my search to Stephen Covey, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”

This made me think about all the things I have the good intention to say and to do, but I don’t follow through. Looking at this from the outside, there is no action, just unrealized intention. For example, I wanted to show my appreciation or write a thank you card, but never got around to it; good intentions, but to anyone else, no action. In fact, lack of action could actually be judged as lack of appreciation. My intentions were good but…

We very often don’t know another person’s intentions. We judge their behaviours and actions (or lack there of) and assume their intentions. And we know our intentions and don’t always see that our actions don’t represent what those intentions are.

This quote is a reminder not just to think about what another person’s intentions are, but also for us to think about how our actions truly represent our behaviours and actions to others. Are we living a congruent life where are actions demonstrate our intentions? Because good intentions are not enough if we aren’t expressing them.

7-Sins-Collage

Here are the 7 Sins, and here come the 7 Virtues?

In January, I wrote a series of posts called the 7 Sins:

  1. Gluttony
  2. Envy
  3. Pride
  4. Lust
  5. Wrath
  6. Greed
  7. Sloth

I plan to write a series of 7 Virtues over this coming week, in addition to my regular daily posts, then auto post them the following week while I take a social media break. I will be deleting my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Apps off of my phone and only using my phone or a laptop with notifications turned off for my sabbatical. On that note, if you regularly read this blog from my Facebook Story or Facebook Timeline, please ‘Like’ this FB page, because during my social media break I won’t be manually adding the posts to my Story or Timeline. You can also get Daily-Ink by email.

Here are 7 Virtues that I am thinking of writing about: (The order might differ.)

  1. Love (including Chastity and Loyalty)
  2. Discipline (including Patience, not just Diligence or Temperance)
  3. Empathy (including Compassion)
  4. Integrity (including Honour and Courage)
  5. Kindness (including Charity),
  6. Humility
  7. Forgiveness

Am I missing anything? Any suggestions?

3 sides to every story

It was my sister many years ago who said this to me the first time, but I’ve heard it many times since. There are 3 sides to every story: The first person’s perspective, the second person’s perspective, and somewhere in between there is the Truth.

We all want to feel that our experience is the Truth, but in reality we can’t always see where the other person is coming from. Relationships often have perceived truths that limit us from seeing the full Truth that lies in the middle. Our bias doesn’t have to come from malice, it can come from innocent ignorance. But when we see the bigger Truth, when we are reflecting back on a conversation, we can sometimes see our own flaws in perspective if we are honest with ourselves.

When this happens, we need to decide if it is more important to come back with the new Truth (or at least our perspective of it), or is it more important to concede that our truth was wrong, and think about how holding on to that truth affected the other person? Because even at this new juncture there might still be 3 sides to the story. Pause and reflect again. Maybe the relationship is more important than the Truth?