Integrity and Hypocrisy

Integrity means the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that one refuses to change.

About a week ago, after hearing Mdm Annie Yong’s morning devotion (every morning, there will be a sharing by either a student, teacher, anybody before a prayer), the issue of integrity and hypocrisy plagued my mind. I came to realize that actually, everyone is a hypocrite, only to different extent. We tend to have double standards, and it is a problem when we are stricter with others than with ourselves. Sometimes, we are aware of the difference in treatment, sometimes we are not, but nevertheless, it happens.

So after the devotion, I remembered about a friend of mine, who said that I had double standards. When he first told me that, I did not believe him, simply cause I was so full of myself. That day, I texted him about it and he sent me a long and detailed message, giving examples of how I had double standards. At first, I was taken aback by the frankness of the text. Then, I thought back and agreed with what he said. But following that, I actually made up reasons for why those discrepanciies happened. I was horrified, I knew they were true, yet I could still think of excuses for them. Then guilt came along. Just who have I become...

In those short moments after recieving the text, I had this array of emotions flooding through. But thinking back now, some of the excuses I made were legitimate. Then came the bigger problem. Until then, my world was purely black and white. I knew about the grey, but it just didnt exists until then. Now, my world has become a little more complicated. My black and white are possibly not what they used to be, and now the grey! Where is that? Where should it be? How do I draw the lines!? Are there even lines?

I have no answers to these questions, the best I can say is I've got to consider things in context, based on the situation. Yet at the same time, I've got to decide now what's acceptable and what's not, if not, what if when something happens and in a moment of folly I make a decision that is against my values? I will regret it for a long time. (I find it hard to forgive myself when I make mistakes)I dont know.

 I dont know anything but the only thing that I am sure of is I, we must always try to live with our values, to live by a strict set of moral code that we set for ourselves, even though at times we may unknowingly break them. As people, it is inevitable that we make mistakes, so I guess what is more important is being able to recognize these mistakes because only then will we be able to take conscious steps to rectify them. We will never not be a hypocrite, but I guess as long as we try our hardest not to be one, nothing too bad can go wrong.