Daily Jots

Thought of the Day:
“Integrity is oneness; the fusion of walk and talk, the acceptance of our own inner darkness; the determined acceptance of reality, however unappealing it sometimes is. …hypocrisy, is the opposite of integrity.”
Molly Wolf

Thinking Outside of the Box:
I found the most interesting article at the “Christian Science Monitor,” the other day. It is a newspaper I read regularly because they still write in the ‘old’ style of journalism. To quote Officer Friday, “Just the facts, ma’am.” I like new journalism, which is probably a good thing because I write in that style, but I love to read the news in the old style. At any rate, I digress.

I was reading their “Society and Culture” section, which is always worth reading. It isn’t about who is debuting on what date, or any of that elitist copy, that no one really is interested in hearing about; it is almost always an interesting comment on what it says it is: Our society and its culture. The entry of December 20, 2005, is worth reading. It’s worth printing, and I think it should be required reading for every teacher and student in the United States.

The word “integrity,” was the most looked up word in the English language in 2005 (so say the folks at Merriam Webster). Interesting. I agree with the commentator in this column. It is a shame we (meaning “we” as a society) need to look it up, because schools have dumbed down everyone so much, they don’t know what the word means, but I think it is a good thing that people want to know what it means and have been exposed to issues that make them need the word.

A person’s integrity is perhaps the most important quality they possess. Going to dictionary.com, the definition of integrity reads: “Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.” That isn’t the easiest road, it is just the honorable one. The right one. The past few decades have shown what lack of integrity does to individuals and hence to society.

The looking up of a word doesn’t change an entire moral infrastructure of a society. But it does bode well for the people within that society. It tells us that we are interested in finding the right road and that may perhaps mean, we have finally found that road.

Some Parting Thoughts:
“The urge of growth is the creative urge, the creative power in the universe. In such moments we grow in sympathy, in self-mastery, in honesty, or in sensitiveness to beauty.”
Richard C. Cabot

“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.”
George Eliot

“I would rather plant a single acorn that will make an oak of a century and a forest of a thousand years than sow a thousand morning glories that give joy for a day and are gone tomorrow.”
Edward Leigh Pell

“Let us ask ourselves as we arise each morning, What is my work today?”
Anna R. Brown Lindsay

“Take off your hats to your yesterdays;
Take off your coats for your tomorrows.”
Unknown

Comments Off