The Silver Lining of Hypocrisy

Rediscovering Personal Integrity

Integrity evolved from the Latin adjective, integer, meaning to be whole or complete.

It is often regarded as a kind of ethical uprightness, a personal choice to consistently uphold oneself to a high moral standard.

But, here’s the rub.

Whose moral standard?

What constitutes ethical uprightness?

Is it about adhering to a cultural set of values or acting in accordance with an inner sense of beliefs and principles?

Personal integrity is defined by the truthfulness of one’s actions.

However, actions are usually generated by thoughts. And thoughts spring from an often, toxic garden of cultural assumptions, unconscious personal biases, insecurities, fears and wishful thinking.

This came up this weekend when our son Leo was informed he did not make the travel basketball team. All of his friends that tried out did. He was crushed.

My heart broke for him.

He seemed on par with the others. I thought about how the other boys all had dads who coached and came from sports-centric families.

I felt defensive, angry, hurt and then ultimately it all clicked into place for me.

I was shattering an unconscious bias.

Confronting an assumption I wasn’t even aware I had.

Boys who make travel basketball in 5^th grade are better. They’re more athletic, more likely to get college scholarships, have lots of friends and be successful. They have boarded the express train to physical superiority.

Yes, I know absurd, crazy and nuts.

It took a close to an hour for me to remember a couple things.

One: Leo just became interested in basketball a couple weeks before try-outs. Some of these other boys have dedicated every free second they have to it.

We have to get honest about that.

Two: We are not a competitive sports family.

The boys’ play in a band, we go to MoMA once a month, they take a cartooning class, we read poetry, snowboard, sail AND play team sports for fun.

So, it’s a good idea to be honest about that.

After being empathetic, hearing his disappointment and giving him a lot of love, I told him a story that I promised would make sense at the end.

I was talking to a friend about this one women, who would run very hot and cold and exclude me from email chain invites and other off-handed slights. I told her how it made me feel poorly.

She said in a very kind and uncritical voice that she thought I might be being hypocritical.

This was shocking.

But, because she was so kind, I was left more curious than insulted and asked what she meant. She asked me if I liked this woman… if I wanted to include her in my inner life… if I felt warmly toward her all the time.

Eye-opening! No, not so much, I said.

And it was literally like the cartoon figures who pop back into their bodies after the anvil has been lifted. I no longer felt flattened because I was honest with myself.

I hadn’t been lying before.

Just living inside an unconscious bias.

I assumed if everyone didn’t like me, there must be something wrong with me, NOT that I am actually not a fan of everyone’s elses… so why should everyone be a fan of mine.

Leo got it without my big analogous analysis.

I don’t think it made him feel a lot better right then. But he is the kind of boy who will chew on it and my hope is that when he does he’ll consider looking inside for answers before measuring himself by external evaluations.

We focus a lot on perseverance, passion, kindness and respect and how this all adds up to a sense of personal integrity but I think something bigger is at stake.

The personal part of personal integrity.