Several times each year, I conduct seminars at the major movie studios in Hollywood. My favorite part of the day is the lunch hour, when I dismiss the class and take a walk through the studio lots where hundreds of movies have been filmed over the years. It’s always fun to walk down the “streets” I recognize from some of my favorite TV shows and films.
On the screen, it looks like you’re walking through the downtown area of a major city. The close-up view in person reveals well-designed storefronts and buildings with nothing behind them except the scaffolding that holds them up. They look real but they’re hollow inside, nothing but a façade.
The entertainment industry is built on make-believe. Actors and actresses are real people pretending to be someone else, saying words that someone else gave them in buildings that don’t really exist. Millions of us spend millions of hours and billions of dollars watching the fantasy, knowing it’s not real but engaging with the characters as if we’ve known them for years.
I’m not criticizing the industry any more than I would criticize fiction books. We all love a good story. But it becomes a problem when our relationships are based on “characters” that aren’t what they seem, pretending to be one way while the reality is totally different. When relationships are built around surface characteristics instead of internal character, there is no hope for handling crazy people in a healthy way.
We need a good dose of integrity.
The Impact of Integrity
In the past, most people shared a common definition of what it meant to have integrity: you were honest, and you could be trusted. You could be counted on to tell the truth. If you didn’t have integrity, you were a liar.
But several decades ago, a “new” version of integrity became popular, called “situational ethics.” That meant we handled any situation based on what was convenient for us. If telling the truth would be uncomfortable or embarrassing, we would tweak the truth. If pretending to respect someone we disliked would work in our favor, we played the part. We chose the easy way over the right way.
Integrity means the outside accurately reflects the inside; it’s when our public image is the same as our private image. Having integrity means that when casual acquaintances say positive things about us, our spouse and children won’t be saying, “Who are they talking about?”
It’s been said that integrity is doing the right thing even when you’re all alone and no one will find out what you did. J. C. Watts said, “There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”[11] We don’t want to be one of those people.
Integrity is the basis of trust. A life without integrity is like a house that’s just been painted but the boards are filled with termites; it looks nice but lacks integrity. Over time the house begins to crumble.
Shaky relationships remind me of an old wooden stepladder I used to own. When I used it for painting or reaching, I always wondered when it was going to fall apart as it swayed and creaked with each step. When I was on it, I was thinking constantly about where I would jump if it started coming apart. Finally, I bought a new aluminum ladder. When I use it, I don’t even think about it. I’m so confident that it won’t fall apart that I trust it completely and am able to focus 100 percent on the task at hand.
That’s what integrity does in relationships. Our experience with high-integrity people gives us so much confidence in that relationship that we don’t question its strength.
The Impact of Integrity on Relationships
When we know we can trust someone, it becomes the base on which we can build a healthy connection with them. When we can’t trust them, it influences everything that happens between us. No matter what they say or do, we question their motives and find ourselves evaluating their words, wondering if what they’re saying can be trusted.
Without integrity, there is no foundation for a relationship to grow. In an earlier chapter, we talked about the need to base everything on truth instead of on our feelings and assumptions. With integrity, we not only need to know what is accurate and real around us, but we need to have truth inside of us. We need to be true.
People will only trust us if we prove ourselves trustworthy. We become trustworthy as people watch us over time and see our integrity. We can’t just tell someone they can trust us; they have to observe it for themselves. If we’re not being real, they might be impressed at first but will sense over time that we’re just a movie set held up by scaffolding.
A wife tells her husband, “You never tell me you love me anymore.” The husband replies, “I told you that when I married you. If it changes, I’ll let you know.” Maybe he does love her, and he might even say, “Yeah, I love you.” But the words will be meaningless unless his actions demonstrate his care for her. Integrity means the words and actions consistently match.
We can’t force anyone to have integrity. The only person we have control of is ourselves. Having integrity won’t change others, but it does provide a foundation for what our relationships will look like. No matter how people respond to us, if we display integrity they’ll recognize that we’re operating from a solid core.
Someone said that if you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters. It’s the foundation for every healthy relationship.
Faking Integrity
Pretending to have integrity takes a lot of work. It’s like pushing a cart through the grocery store and hitting a grape on the floor. The grape sticks to one of the wheels, and that wheel won’t turn. We move the cart back and forth trying to dislodge it, but to no avail. Yes, we can keep shopping, but the experience turns into a negative one because we’re fighting the grape the whole time.
Movie actors experience this when they’re playing a part. They have to convince the audience that they really are someone else. But after the scene is over, they can’t stay in that role forever. If they pretended to actually be that character in public, people would be amused but no one would believe them. So they play the part during the filming and are usually exhausted at the end because of the energy it took pretending to be something they are not.
Mark Twain said that if you always tell the truth, you don’t have to have a good memory.[12] That’s the way integrity is; if we actually have it, we won’t wear ourselves out pretending that we do.
My father-in-law worked for a gas utility his entire career. One of his responsibilities was to teach new field workers how to weld steel pipe. They would practice until they felt they had welded a successful joint. My father-in-law would then put the welded pipe in a machine that twisted the metal until it broke. If it was a good weld, the metal would break first, not the weld. If the weld had integrity, it was stronger than the steel.
That’s what integrity is like in our lives. It provides strength that doesn’t break when we get twisted by the pressure of another person’s choices. That doesn’t mean we have to be tough and forceful with others; rather, we’ve developed the inner strength to stand firm when we’re challenged by others.
Crazy people often use logic to make us crazy, and they’re usually good at it. Under the pressure of emotion, it’s easy to assume their logic is true. We let it mess with our heads, and we feel like we have to respond perfectly. But integrity is about us, not about them. Building integrity means we’re strengthening the truth in our lives, building the security that stays strong no matter what the other person does.
If we’re faking integrity, we might look like a good weld. But when the pressure comes, we’ll break.
Protecting Our Integrity
Having integrity isn’t like getting a college degree, where you graduate once and have the degree for the rest of your life. We have to constantly guard our integrity so we don’t lose it. King Solomon said, “Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4:23).
Wouldn’t it be great if we could buy a new car and never have to wash it? Unfortunately, that car is constantly exposed to polluted air, bird droppings, tree sap, and dust. That’s why we need to regularly apply a coat of wax to protect the finish. When we do, the dirt and droppings still land on the car but come off with a quick rinse. Without that protection, the pollutants gradually begin to eat into the paint and compromise the integrity of the finish.
We live in a society that bombards us with reasons to give up our integrity, tempting us to compromise what’s right for what’s convenient. It’s naïve to assume that our integrity is protected, that we’re strong enough to handle the negative inputs around us (including the impact of crazy people). We need a good coat of wax and a regular rinse to keep our “paint” intact. Just as it’s easier to keep the paint nice than to bring back the luster once it’s gone, it’s easier to maintain our integrity than to recover it once it’s lost.
How can we protect our integrity?
Stay Close to the Healthy People in Our Lives
We become like the people we spend the most time with. Some people make us better and stronger when we’re with them, and others drain us. Life dictates that we’ll have to spend time with both types of people. But our integrity will grow if we consciously plan time with the people who build into our lives.
When our emotions are running on empty, we have nothing left to refill our own tank. We need to spend time with those whose emotional tanks are full and who are willing to share.
Be Conscious of Our Inputs
My dad once tried to bake a chocolate marble cake for my mom. The recipe said to “take two cups of batter and set it aside, add melted chocolate, and then swirl it back in.” But my dad misread the word “batter” and added two cups of “butter.” That’s four sticks of the yellow stuff. When the cake came out, it was about a half inch thick and weighed about five pounds. Whatever goes into the cake determines how the final product turns out.
That’s true of our character as well. Our integrity is a product of what we think. What we think will be determined by our inputs. The adage “Garbage in, garbage out” applies here.
For years, my wife and I have watched the news as a way to wind down before going to bed. Generally, I can go to sleep immediately. But I often wake up after about four hours and can’t go back to sleep for a long time. I also frequently have uncomfortable dreams throughout the night and wake up feeling unsettled and not rested.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about what I see on the news at night. Most of it is negative, highlighting crime, economic problems, and corruption. The last inputs I have before going to bed have been negative. So I’ve switched to watching the early evening news and wrapping up any stimulating inputs about forty-five minutes before bedtime. I might read something that doesn’t get my mind in high gear, or I simply sit in the dark on our patio for a while. I’ve discovered that my dreams have been much more positive, and I wake up feeling more refreshed. I might still wake up in the night, but I feel relaxed and can usually go back to sleep fairly quickly.
When I’m concerned about the actions or words of the crazy people in my life, I’ve learned the value of consciously replacing those thoughts with positive inputs: reading something uplifting, spending time in Scripture, walking through our local park, or connecting with the people who build positively into my life.
Be Intentional in Our Relationships with Crazy People
When we get “dumped on” by the crazy people in our lives, it’s important to take time out to keep it from eating away at our integrity. We need to wash the bird droppings off the hood. People can only mess up our lives if we give them permission, so it’s critical to do the regular maintenance to make sure we’re operating from a solid foundation.
The Bottom Line on Integrity
Let’s draw from the wisdom of others in developing and keeping our integrity:
Live your life in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. (Will Rogers)
You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. (Rwandan proverb)
Don’t try to be better than others; try to be better than yourself. (Unknown)
Try to be the kind of person your dog already thinks you are. (Unknown)