We shouldn't be interested only in the physical well-being, but also in the mental. Not only the material aspect, but also the spiritual. Not only the personal side, but also the social. Not only in our private moments, but also in our moments with others.

We're supposed to uphold what's truly good for all & for each one in all aspects & situations, always & everywhere. Whether we're alone or with others, with men or with women, with the old or with the young.

That's what a person of integrity is. There's a certain consistency & unity in his being & in his doings. In his thoughts & in his words & actions. Whether in big things or in small, in the inside as well as in the outside, the concrete ones or in the abstract.

He certainly knows how to distinguish things & conditions & can vary his behavior according to the situation. He knows how to be discrete & prudent. These qualities are never enemies of integrity.

But there's an undeniable consistency in all these, springing from a clear knowledge of what he ultimately & constantly is.

Alas, he also knows integrity can't only be the fruit of human effort. A much higher form of power & strength is needed to effect it.

He knows he isn't & can't be confined to the human & natural dimension of life. He's aware of the supernatural reality to which he is also subject & strives to live also by its laws.

In other words, he knows how to live both in his temporal & eternal dimensions, without exaggerating one at the expense of the other. This is the irreducible wholeness expected of all of us.

But I get the impression many people don't bother anymore about developing & maintaining integrity.

The problems & cares in life seem to dissolve any interest that people should have about this duty. They're contented with just getting by, doing what comes spontaneously, or what simply is practical & helpful at the moment.

There isn't much interest about what man should be. Everything is experimental or a matter of opinion & consensus. There's no clear idea about what he truly is.

There's no attempt at getting a definition that can be applied to all men at all times, irrespective of cultures & climbs thru ages & places. There's no interest to understand man more deeply.

Many don't go beyond how they feel, how they think, what they observe around to get an idea of what man should be. The result is that human understanding about man gets deficient, if not distorted or even openly wrong.

This is lamentable, of course, a genuine crisis. We may not like to admit it, but its manifestations are all around us.

Start with the more conspicuous public figures, our politicians, whose lack of integrity is written large for all, even the most simple-minded, to see. Recent developments in local politics show politicians entangled with partisanship if not pure self-interest & blind to the bigger requirements of the common good.

Consider the pervading mentality that accepts contraception as a good means to effect some population balance. People don't yet see the inherent evil of contraception. They just get contented at the thought that contraception isn't as bad as abortion.

Of course, all around us everyday are constant examples of inconsistencies between words & deeds, desires & performance, what is public & what is private, external & internal.

We have to develop a sense of integrity. And it has to start with the return to God, for without him, we would not have the source, the power & the reason to achieve this elusive ideal of human integrity.
No God, no integrity. Just full of show & promise, but no substance, no loyalty, no reliability.

"Rather fall with honor than succeed by fraud."

Sophocles

To be truly successful, you must have great personal integrity. Although you may know people who seem to profit from personal treachery or shady dealings, their success is unlikely to last. Make no mistake about it: integrity is critical to maximum career advancement.

I'm talking about being trustworthy, ethical, honest & dependable to the core & most importantly, being consistently so. Others glimpse your personal integrity thru your behavior, reputation, life-style, scruples, morals, ethics & personal & social maturity.

You may think you have little control over your integrity - that your character is hereditary, like eye color or intelligence. You may believe that integrity is a function of your environment - that you'll be no better or worse than the people who raised you & the friends with whom you grew up.

Indeed, heredity, environment & culture all influence your character. Nonetheless, your attitudes & behavior are ultimately yours to  control . They're your responsibility & others will judge you accordingly.

Here are some thoughts & actions that will help cultivate your integrity.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." 

Oscar Wilde

Look in the mirror each day & say something positive about yourself. Praise & reward yourself for jobs well done. Compliment yourself for good ideas.

If this feels funny, it shows you need to practice self-praise more regularly. We all need daily, positive "strokes." All too often, we may be the only available source! At the same time, don't kid yourself. Praise yourself for those strengths you have; resolve to attain the strengths you have yet to develop.

Don't put yourself down or speak negatively about yourself. It's self-demeaning & contagious! When you make mistakes, remind yourself you're still evolving & that every mistake you choose to learn from moves you closer toward personal success.

When you build self-esteem, you generate self-confidence which is key to optimum performance. 3 excellent books in this area are The Psychology of High Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden, I'm OK You're OK by Thomas Harris & Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

A friend of mine once learned the importance of self-esteem the hard way. He came to me as a business development manager earning $85,000 annually, some 15% more than average for his field.

I presented him with the exact opportunity he needed to achieve his long-term career goal of becoming a Division Manager. Although his credentials were impeccable, he became intimidated because his peers viewed him as too inexperienced. He started reminding himself of all his shortcomings as he & others saw them, steadily losing confidence all the while.

In the big interview, he choked when asked about his shortcomings & why they should hire him over an incumbent VP of operations. With self-esteem on his side, he could have answered the question with confidence & won the job.

Your career depends on constructive, supportive relationships. We all run across people we can't tolerate, but being vindictive or hostile can cripple your career. Don't allow another's envy or attacks to rattle you.

Instead, forgive & forget. Move ahead only with a clear conscience. You never know who may reappear (to your dismay) somewhere down the road.

I knew a vice president of finance who had gone far in 6 years after college graduation. His technical abilities were outstanding; his people skills were average.

My friend was closing in on an out-of-town job opportunity which would have made him the youngest senior vice-president in a major utility company. After the final, promising interview, the firm checked additional references.

Apparently, an office clerk he once alienated left the company & became secretary to a senior executive who was a good friend of the potential employer. When the clerk described her run-in with the candidate; he was removed from consideration. Had my friend cleared up that old relationship, I think he would have had the job.

"The idle are a peculiar kind of dead who cannot be buried." Chinese proverb

For maximum career advancement, do more than you're required to do & deliver more than you promise. If you do only what you're paid to do, you're entitled to nothing extra. So if your boss needs you to do an extra hour of work, give 2 hours. If your client needs a longer warranty, give him that & more.

If your sales quota is $20,000 per month, sell $25,000. Giving more is the quickest way to get more.

I have a client with whom our firm has done business for 5 years. Over that time, several occasions arose in which our client needed us to consult with them.

We normally charge fees for such consultations, but waived them to affirm our loyalty & commitment to their long-term interests. On occasion, we even referred candidates for appropriate job opportunities at no charge, again for the same reason.

Do we calculate the cost to us? Does it always pay off?

No. But when we hold the client's best interest in mind, we generally win in the long run.

"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm." - Vince Lombardi

Enthusiasm is critical to success in everything you do, not only for yourself, but for those around you. Enthusiasm draws others to you. Positive energy is always contagious. We all respect those with passion, passion to live, passion to love. By bringing enthusiasm to the workplace, you spread sunshine.

People with enthusiasm are persuasive & communicate self-confidence. People are always more persuaded by the depth of our beliefs & emotions than by any logic or knowledge we advance. Persuasion isn't converting people to your way of thinking, it's converting them to your feelings & beliefs.

Enthusiasm sends a clear message to others that you like who you are, who they are & what you're doing. Monitor your enthusiasm throughout your work day & see how effective you are in getting support from your peers, bosses & subordinates.

Management may not know much about your work, but they see your appearance. Right or wrong, people judge you in part by how you look.

Do a personal evaluation on your appearance. Chances are, you can improve your appearance substantially by simply paying closer attention to the details.

Try to look your best whenever you leave your home. Choosing higher-quality clothing, keeping your hair cut, being clean-shaven, shining you shoes & wearing a smile every time you encounter others will make a big difference in your overall presence.

For work, I recommend you mimic the dress code of your senior management. If anything, dress a bit more conservatively than the top brass at your company.

A good compendium of image books &consultants is Professional Image Publications by Jacqueline Thomas, Staten Island, NY.

"A good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember." 

J.M. Brown

Personal integrity includes knowing & practicing proper etiquette. There are proper behaviors for every business situation & it's incumbent upon you to learn & practice it. Letitia Baldridge's book, Complete Guide to Executive Manners, Rawson Associates, NYC, 1985, will help you develop poise & grace.

I have personally seen professionals lose career opportunities because they had poor table manners. By happy contrast, I've also seen a candidate of mine demonstrated such a command of etiquette that he won an outstanding position.

This candidate & I were invited to a private function hosted by the prospective employer. Many respected individuals were in attendance. He had dressed properly for the occasion, understood the art of business entertaining, was effective & courteous in his conversation, showed grace & poise in dining, remembered people's names - in short, did everything right.

What won him the job was an act of perception that went beyond mere good manners. As the meal progressed, an older gentleman sitting in the corner went almost unnoticed until my candidate took the time to draw him out. As it turns out, this retiree had been highly successful decades before & relished the opportunity to talk about it with such an interested dinner partner.

As toasts were shared, my candidate toasted the accomplishments & stature of his new friend. This won over the retiree's proud daughter, who also happened to be the wife of the host. Her endorsement helped win my candidate the job.

"If you are not big enough to lose, you are not big enough to win." - Walter Reuther

Establish your own code of ethics & be willing to hold your ground regardless of temptation or cost. Let others know what standards you live by & don't disappoint them or yourself.

The most respected & admired people are always the "good guys" who win ethically. Short-term gain can't justify the risk of losing our reputation & the victory in having won by fraud.

In my experience, ethical missteps may be the most common cause for career stagnation. Once your integrity is open to question, in even a single incident, there is little hope for forgiveness in a competitive, unforgiving marketplace.

Our firm & its counterparts encounter numerous candidates - otherwise well-qualified - who can't be placed due to breaches of conduct. Theft of time & assets, unprofessional outbursts, overindulgence of alcohol at business & social functions, lies of omission & other such indiscretions are all unacceptable.

In a book like this, I can't give you the moral strength required to always make the right choices. I can, however, suggest an easy yardstick you can use.. Before you act, before you yield to temptation, imagine yourself in the final interview for your dream job.

Would what you're about to do or say improve your chances of advancement?

"The price of greatness is responsibility."

Winston Churchill

People who do what they say they'll do - the people you know you can count on - are the most highly valued employees wherever they work. Emulate them.

It's in your day-to-day interest to always come thru. This gives you the grounds to expect the same of others & after all, your commitments often depend on your co-workers' efforts.

Doing what you promise only part of the time isn't good enough. It can cost you your credibility. So be conservative w/your promises. I once presented an exceptional job opportunity to an architect. She was happily employed & not looking, but after lengthy discussions she decided that the new opportunity was indeed for her.

Her interviews resulted in an offer. She accepted, but upon turning in her resignation, she received a counteroffer which she also accepted despite our vigorous counseling that counteroffers are recipes for disaster.

Within 6 months, her old firm had replaced her as overpriced & disloyal. The firm that courted her 6 months before shunned her as untrustworthy. She had accepted their offer once & gone back on her word. Don't you make such mistakes.

"80% of life is showing up."

Woody Allen

People like to be treated with respect & in business, punctuality is more than good manners. It's a clear way to demonstrate good faith. By meeting your time commitments, you build belief that your other promises & contracts are trustworthy.

Try not to make time commitments you can't keep. If you'll be late, call beforehand to re-schedule. I've seen good jobs lost because the candidate ignored this simple courtesy.

"There is no right way to do something wrong."

No chapter on integrity would be complete w/out addressing the subject of "confidential indiscretion." If there's one thing that can destroy a promotion, or even a career, it's earning a reputation for being indiscreet. It can take only one breach of confidence to lose the trust of a valued associate or employer.

Breaches of confidence, whether it be company trade secrets, client privileges, gossip, or simple jest - however innocent-seeming - can leave you marked for the duration of your career. These violations aren't easily forgiven.

Interviewers will often look for bad-mouthing & sharing of company secrets during interviews. Many interviewers consider inability to keep confidential information secret the worst breach of integrity - worse than lying or stealing.

Evaluate yourself to see if you share secrets or gossip to gain attention. If you feel that improvement is needed, work to develop the necessary self-confidence & maturity to resist the temptations of tale- bearing.

"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." 

John Ruskin

American business seems to have sacrificed quality in pursuit of short-term profits. The quick fix, the fast buck, the quest for instant gratification has created many problems we now have to face as a nation & a part of the world economy. We have been providing less for more, while our competitors focus on providing more for less.

I'm convinced this decade will show a recommitment to quality in our values, education, service & products. Play a leading role in this trend.

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." 

Vince Lombardi

Your attitude is your choice. Anxiety, fear, worry, guilt, motivation, enthusiasm & happiness are all reactions we permit ourselves to experience. You may feel you have been dealt some bad cards in life, but it's up to you not to dwell on them. Hold quick "funerals" for your disappointments. Forget them & move on.

Our attitude isn't determined by circumstances, but by how we respond to circumstances. Don't be a victim of your past. You can change your attitude, by changing the way you react to the events around you. Even stress is only a product of how you perceive, define & react to the world.

Our greatest power is the power to choose! We can decide where we are, what we do & what we think. No one can take the power to choose away from us. It's ours alone. We can do what we want to do. We can be who we want to be.

Respect other people's opinions, but don't allow others to define who you are. If you base your self-image on others' approval, break the pattern. Rejection is a part of life. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. One of the best guides I've read on attitude improvement is the classic The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.

Motivation is fundamental to achievement in any field. As I have noted, it's far easier to generate motivation when your job interests you, calls on your strengths & presents achievable challenges. But great achievers bring motivation to almost everything they do. They believe they can succeed. You, too, are capable of great achievement, but you must begin by choosing to succeed.

In 1982, two top-ranked tennis pros were pitted against each other in the semi-finals at a Tennis Tournament in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

They were Vitas Gerulaitis & Eliot Teltscher. After battling thru the first 2 sets, they were tied, even-Steven. In the 8^th game of the 3^rd set, Gerulaitis slashed his way to ‘match-point’. After an intense rally of back & forth shots, Gerulaitis hit a ball that struck the top of the net & dribbled over for what seemed to be a ‘sure match winner’!

But, nobody figured on Teltscher’s sudden adrenaline rush. He came tearing up to the net, dived at the ball & miraculously lofted it over Gerulaitis’ head. Taken by surprise & stunned, Gerulaitis moved back & took a swipe at the ball. But, he moved too late & his shot went wide.

The crowd lost it. They went nuts. Teltscher had survived ‘match point’ or so it seemed.

As the cheering died, Teltscher indicated that in his lunge toward the final shot, he had touched the net – a violation.

The umpire hadn’t seen him touch the net & there was a lot of money riding on the outcome of this game. But, that didn’t make any difference to Teltscher. Neither one of those elements changed the rules of the game or the gentleman’s code that is the basis of the rules.

Teltscher was his own umpire. He made an impartial judgment. He was ruled by a code of ethics based on good, sound character. He shook the hand of his opponent, nodded to the crowd & walked off the court – in defeat.

But, was it really a defeat?

Hadn’t he won out in a personal battle against private dishonesty? He could have gotten the money, the attention & rave reviews in the media, but only by sacrificing his integrity.

He had to be a loser in one way or another. He chose to be a winner in things that really matter. As he walked off the tennis court, he walked away as ‘a winner in defeat’. The news media picked up on his noble choice & broadcast it around the nation. That man became an example & pattern for honesty & integrity.

In one strategic moment, he became an influence for good around the world.

Today, 17 years later, Teltscher is still being an influence for good as I use his story to push home a point. These written words will be passed on & preserved & read by others in the future.

But, I don’t want to merely ‘push home a point’; I want to ‘drive it home’! So, I’m going to tell you another story.

Only one year after Teltscher’s momentous decision, Andrew Flosdorf was put in a similar situation at a National Spelling Bee. Heralded as a winner, Andrew later approached the judges & told them they had misunderstood him.

He had actually misspelled the word ‘echolalia’.

The 13 year-old boy learned of his mistake when other contestants asked him how he spelled the word. After checking & finding out that he had really misspelled it, he went to the judges himself & told them that he had substituted an "e" for the first "a".

As Andrew tells it, "The judges said I had a lot of integrity" & added, "I didn’t want to feel like a slime."

Andrew was interviewed & received numerous requests to appear on network television. He couldn’t understand why he was getting all that attention. "After all," he said, "the first rule of Scouting is honesty."

So, my first question is this: "Can the invisible Judge of the universe examine the details of my life & say, "Son, you have a lot of integrity"?

The second question is: "Do I want to feel like slime?

In 1969, I became the opposite of that which I’m now promoting. I told God ‘out loud’ – Goodbye! I abandoned family, religion & all the moral restraints which those 2 elements represent.

I became an accomplished liar, living under other names & lying to everyone. Deception became part of my character. Every day that I lived, I deceived people. My birth place was a lie. My birth date was a lie. Every detail of my family history was a lie. My job history was totally fabricated.

Night & day I lived & practiced lying & ‘being’ a lie.

In case I needed some political clout to cover my tail in the future, I campaigned for Winfield Dunn to be Governor of Tennessee. He became the first Republican governor of Tennessee in 50 years & I was invited to the inaugural ball.

My lies bought me honor & recognition. I was bonded by insurance companies, financed by banks & trusted by many individuals.

Under one name, I broke the law & dropped clues for the police to follow. Even the clues were part of my deception. My lies sent them in the wrong direction & bought me the extra time I needed to get away.

What am I getting at? The question isn't whether anyone will find out or not. It’s a matter of what’s right. If I lie to you & you never find out, does that make it okay?

Is it all right to rob a bank as long as you don’t get caught? Would it be okay for a burglar to vandalize your house as long as you never found out who did it?

Oh no! That would never be all right! Well, what if it was something so small that it was really insignificant? Would that make a difference? If he just stole one of the hubcaps off your car, would that be okay?

Would you want to hire a maid or gardener who would never take anything of great value from you. Would it be okay if they made sure they only took small things?

Integrity never looks at the size of the offense. It operates on principle alone. It never considers whether anyone else will ever find out or not. It does what is right, because it’s right. In the eyes of integrity, wrong is never right.

While living in Tennessee under another name, an angel appeared to my secretary. The angel spoke to her about things that happened in my life while I was in the 5th grade. There was no way she could be making this stuff up because I had never trusted anyone with the truth of my true identity.

I told Him I would be a Christian under my new name. But, God doesn’t bargain. He just lays His cards on the table & then gives every player a chance to respond however they want to.

Jesus said, "I Am The Truth", so how could anyone truly follow Him & keep living a lie? No Deal! He didn’t want to be an accomplice w/me in my deceitful ways.

The end result was that I came home to my original family. I went to Montana & turned myself in to the authorities. I went to the banks & made arrangements to pay them back little by little. I wrote letters of apology to many whom I had offended in the past.

There were many that I couldn’t apologize to or repay in any way, so I prayed for them night & day for a couple of years.

During that 2 years, I had to re-learn the decent & honest ways of living. I had to walk in integrity for a change. When I lied to people, I had to go back & tell them I lied. I was in training & believe me, it wasn’t an easy school to stay in.

Every week there were new reasons why I wanted to be a ‘drop out’. I wanted to go back to my old ways. It was hard.

On one occasion, I got gas at the Minit-Mart next to Ramada Inn on Highway 90. When I walked out to my car, I counted the change & discovered I had 5 dollars too much! I grinned at my good fortune & started to get in the car.

A Biblical scripture came rushing into my mind, "Buy the truth & sell it not." But, I wasn’t going to let a silly religious scripture rob me of 5 bucks! I opened the door & got in. A new thought hollered, "Judas sold the Truth for 30 pieces of silver & you’re going to do it for 5 bucks!"

Man! I couldn’t take that. I went back & gave the man his 5 dollars & told him what he had done. Appreciation jumped out all over his face. He knew he wouldn’t come up short at the end of the day. His boss wouldn’t have to take that amount out of his pay.

Two weeks later, I went in to buy gas at the Circle K store across the street from the Pizza Hut. I swear, the same thing happened & it was the same amount – 5 dollars! I got a bit angry & said to myself, "I’m NOT GOING BACK THIS TIME!"

But, I couldn’t drive away from that place w/money that wasn’t mine. I did go back. I really was in training & practice makes perfect.

The next part of this story is just too much! I walked into the H.E.B. supermarket to cash a check. An elderly man behind the counter took the check, counted out 25 dollars & slid the money to me. I scooped it up & counted it as I walked away - 5, 10, 15, 20 & 25.

I was shocked! Right there on the bottom of that stack of bills was my check. The man had accidentally slipped my check back to me!

I glanced at him behind the cage & he was going about his business. He didn’t know what he had done & he didn’t know me from Adam. He'd never be able to prove a thing. Instead of shopping, I headed for the nearest exit. I wasn’t going to be a ‘Pollyanna Puritan’ .

I needed the money. This was too easy. I was going to keep it.

A fast pace & big strides were getting me out of there in a hurry. But, I wasn’t fast enough. Something from w/in challenged me, "So, it’s just a matter of price? You wouldn’t crucify Truth for 5 dollars, but you would for $25 – is that it?"

I wanted to holler, "Shut up! Shut up!" I slowed down, but kept heading for the door. Then, I slowed down some more & finally stopped. I looked at the check – looked at the manager’s cage & shook my head. I didn’t want truth & honesty any more than a kid wants measles.

It wasn’t my nature. It wasn’t my habit. It seemed to be such an unnecessary waste.

Reluctantly, I turned & headed for that little square cubicle at the end of the check-out lines. Looking up into that old man’s wrinkled face, I told him what he'd done. Once again, profuse appreciation erupted from a grateful heart. I turned around & knew that I'd done the ‘right thing’.

Integrity is a difficult thing to learn. Do I always get a perfect score on my test paper? Not hardly. I lied & cheated many times after that – but most of the times I had to go back & make things right. Each new experience seemed to make the process easier & easier.

Twenty-seven years of practice has improved my record considerably.

I can’t condemn anyone else for lying, stealing, or cheating. That’s not the purpose for this article. I’m merely trying to let my words become a ‘good influence’ in your life. I’m not expecting perfection from anyone, but I encourage you to reach for improvement in that area of your life.

It’s worth a try for me. Is it worth a try for you? I hope so.

The store owner looked at his new employee & said, "Wisdom & integrity are essential to the retail business. Integrity means that if you promise a customer something, you have to keep that promise, even if it means we lose money."

The teenager looked up at him & asked, "And what is Wisdom?"

The boss answered, "That is: to not make any stupid promises!"

How to Think: Intellectual Integrity

This is the first in a series of essays I intend to write on the nature of the creative process. While I recognize my own shortcomings as a thinker, I have ofttimes been stunned by the elementary mistakes made by some people. There are so many complex ways to screw up good thinking, why do people have to blow it at the simplest levels?

I hope to present a practical, no-nonsense approach to the process of thinking. The toughest challenge in writing these essays, I reckon, will be avoiding homilies.

At first glance, a discourse on clear thinking may seem out of place in a journal devoted to interactive entertainment design. Yet, I have witnessed the decision-making processes of a great many individuals in this industry & I have come to realize that there's a lot of flawed thinking out there.

I'm not complaining that people are sometimes wrong; we'll make mistakes at times. The problem I'm tackling is with the thought processes that go on. Poor thinking often leads to wrong conclusions. As designers, we simply can't afford to make those kinds of mistakes. Hence these essays.

The first & most important factor in clear thinking is absolute integrity. Good thinking is tough, hard work, easily distorted by a wide variety of bad habits. Intellectual integrity is the only defense against the many internal demons that would turn us away from the truth. It only takes one failure of integrity to corrupt one's thinking. This is why integrity; the absolute dedication to truth; is essential to clear thought.

Most people use a narrow definition of integrity. The common & inadequate definition of integrity applies only to relationships with other people & then only to the truth value of explicit declarations. Joe Typical figures that, so long as he never tells an outright lie, then he has preserved his integrity. This is the "social" definition of integrity: if nobody can ever prove that I lack integrity, then I must have it. Innocent until proven guilty.

This works fine if your only concern is how you appear to other people. It permits a variety of deceitful behaviors, such as allowing another person to continue in a mistaken belief, or failing to tell someone something that they should know. Most people engage in such behaviors.

The reasoning used to justify such behavior is destructive to clear thinking. It's impossible to engage in deceptive behavior without in some way believing the untruth in some corner of your mind. He who innocently shrugs his shoulders & mumbles, "Gee, isn't it sad that somebody would have told her that" creates a tiny fantasy world in which he truly is innocent. To say it, you must first conceive it & to conceive it, you must erect the mental construction somewhere in your mind.

But this little false-fantasy contradicts what you know to be true, so you must isolate the false-fantasy from the "real world" portion of your mind. You must build a little wall to seal off the falsehood.

Every time you tell or even think anything less than the absolute truth, you create a little wall in your mind & then you must maintain that wall for as long as the consequences of the falsehood might come back to you.

After a while, your mind is full of walls. How can you think clearly with such a cluttered mind?

Integrity isn't for the benefit of others & it's for your own benefit. It smooths the path to the truth.

This is only the most obvious example of the value of integrity. Mankind has invented many more subtle crimes against Truth; addressing these crimes individually will be the stuff of future essays.

There really is such a thing as Truth with a capital "T" & getting closer to it takes dedication. That's the way of all things. If you want Money (with a capital "M") you have to be absolutely dedicated to the pursuit of money & make no compromises in its pursuit (& we have plenty of people like that in our industry.)

If you want Truth, then you have to be absolutely dedicated to its pursuit & integrity is the measure of how dedicated a person is to that pursuit. Integrity is to Truth as greed is to Money.

Just as the seeker of Money will make enemies & step on toes in pursuit of wealth, so too will the seeker of Truth step on toes & make enemies. They killed Socrates. What do you want, Truth or Popularity?

One of the ways in which a lack of integrity makes itself manifest is in the ready acceptance of beliefs which have desirable consequences, but for which there is little objective justification.

Belief in reincarnation provides a good example. We all fear the oblivion of death, but if we are to be reincarnated, then death is subverted.

Reincarnation eliminates the psychological terrors of death & this in turn creates a powerful incentive to believe in reincarnation. To believe in reincarnation out of a fear of death belies a failure of intellectual integrity.

It isn't my place, of course, to judge any other person; I can't know what animates another person's beliefs, so I'll not declare that any belief in reincarnation is necessarily proof of low intellectual integrity. I wouldn't even say that it suggests as much. This is a question each of us must answer privately.

A more pertinent example of such a failure comes from wishful thinking, something that permeates our industry. I've noticed a dogged refusal to accept unpleasant hypotheses from some of my colleagues. They want to think only optimistic thoughts. This surprises me; I'm just as comfortable with pessimistic thoughts as with optimistic ones.

Some of my colleagues will reject a proposal because it's pessimistic. They deplore such thoughts as "gloom & doom" thinking. In another time & another place, they would've used the term "defeatist". It's as if our industry elevates optimism to the status of dogma.

I can understand part of this. The whole Silicon Valley / high technology / startup company gestalt is founded on a bold optimism that the future is made by brave entrepreneurs who refuse to accept failure. But it can also lead to a blindness that defies understanding. Atari went down in flames with the band playing & all flags flying. So did Next & Osborne Computers & countless other examples.

Intellectual integrity demands that we give due consideration to the most unpleasant of hypotheses. We must not balk at entertaining ideas that make us look bad, or suggest a dark future. Intellectual integrity is a kind of internalized First Amendment, requiring us to hear out every idea, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

Another example comes from misplaced reliance on intuition. I consider intuition to be one of the highest forms of human thinking, on a plane with wisdom a notch above judgement & two notches above logic. It's the ability to make decisions with very little in the way of direct evidence, but lots of indirect evidence.

When exercised properly (& I quickly acknowledge my own personal weakness here), intuition is powerful stuff. On the other hand, some people rely on intuition when logic would suffice. I've seen a few people stand by their intuitions even when presented with firm logical contradictory evidence. This too is a failure of intellectual integrity.

Integrity isn't like virginity; each of us carries it in greater or lesser degree. I know a few people who have impressed me with the magnitude of their integrity. Most people, I suspect, have long since compromised their integrity in pursuit of other objectives. This doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them bad thinkers.