Reading today from Rachel Remen’s My Grandfather’s Blessings, she writes of integrity, or as she titles it, “keeping it together.” She describes giving a group of 73 physicians a list of 21 life values, things like admiration, control, wisdom, competence, love, power, compassion, happiness…. First she asked them to rank the values in what was most important to them in their work. Then, taking those up, she asked them to rank the values according to what was most important to them personally. No one had two identical lists. Her comments are thought provoking, to say the least. Perhaps “challenging” is a better word:
“It has been surprising to see how often people do not realize that their deepest values ae as personal as their fingerprints. Not knowing this many of us have sacrificed certain things in order to have other things that we have been told are more important. Some of the things we have let go of in order to be seen as successful may have been far more important to us personally in the end than some of the things we have held on to or even fought for.”
She concludes on more of an up note: “Deep inside, our integrity sings to us whether we are listening or not. It is a note that only we can hear. Eventually, when life makes us ready to listen, it will help us find our way home.”
It occurs to me... 