The Sixth Sense

An integrated life

A life that isn’t integrated is a life without integrity.

I’ve been thinking about this for several months now. Am I one person living one life or someone with many personas living multiple lives?

I am increasingly convinced that wholeness stems from living one, integrated life.

Do I have a compartmentalised life where different compartments come out based on who I’m with? Or am I the same, whole, person no matter who I am with?

Is there a work me, a friends me, a family me, and a private me? Or is there just one me who permeates my whole life no matter who I’m with or what I’m doing?

Don’t get me wrong, different environments will demand different things of us and bring out aspects of our personality and talents that don’t come out in other environments. That’s normal. But the question is whether we are someone totally different. Someone we might be ashamed of if people in other groups saw us like that.

Are we spending half our lives creating a persona, keeping up appearances? Are we pretending to be something or someone we’re not? In other words, are we actors or, more accurately, hypocrites?

The problem with living life this way is that it is draining. Spending our whole life acting is hard work!

Freedom comes from being so comfortable with who we are that we no longer feel the need to pretend or impress. We can be ourselves. We are whole. We have an integrated life which oozes integrity and breeds trust.

To be honest, I’m wary of people I’m not convinced I’m seeing the real them. Religious people are the worst for this. If Hollywood ever runs out of actors, they could just start going to churches and quickly identify some of the best actors the world has ever seen! It’s like the pressure of religion compels them to pretend. They cannot be themselves. They create a church persona and say all the right things. It stinks. Seems like Jesus thought so too.

Tags: Integration, Integrity, Life, Religion

When facts don’t matter

What do you do if you’re a person who values facts, truth, honesty, and integrity but none of that seems to matter?

The ‘best’ singer doesn’t always win X Factor or American Idol. The ‘best’ movie doesn’t get the plaudits or awards that it should do. The ‘best’ political party doesn’t win the election.

Me and my wife Rachel got really into the recent BBC series ‘Last Choir Standing’. We loved a brilliant gospel choir called ‘Revelation’. Every week we hoped that they’d win. They made it to the final but were then knocked out, coming in third behind two welsh choirs.

This really frustrated me. The welsh and scottish performers in shows like these always overachieve. And not because they’re better; but because they’re welsh. (I know, that’s not always the case, but it is often.)

The welsh and scots are a lot more patriotic than the english and will simply vote for their nationality, regardless of how good they are. In other words, how good the person is becomes irrelevant. Whether they are better or not doesn’t matter.

I may feel like I have the moral high ground, but what difference does that matter? My choir/singer/film/party didn’t win.

Something that I am slowly coming to terms with is that, whilst I am someone for whom facts do matter, a larger percentage of people really aren’t that moved by facts. That’s not a criticism necessarily, simply an observation of reality.

And, if I’m honest, I’m not solely moved by facts. We can’t always explain why we like one singer over another or one political candidate over another. It’s a gut thing. We just like them. We may call ourselves rational but we’re actually rationalizing our gut reaction.

Take the American presidential election. John McCain has suddenly wrested control of the agenda and possibly the election. Why? Because people are suddenly buying into his economic or foreign policy? No. Not all all. They just are. It’s a gut thing. Sarah Palin has connected with a core group in America, appealed to their gut, their emotional ties.

Barack Obama did the same thing. He appealed to people on a gut level and not a frontal lobe level. They just liked him. He was a breath of fresh air. And yes, of course, for many it ties in hugely with what he stands for, but the truth of the matter is that people being drawn to Obama wasn’t entirely a rational thing.

For Obama now, if he wants to stay in contention come November, he needs to connect with people on that gut level again. Facts and being right won’t get him elected. It may be sad to have to say that, but it does seem to be the truth.

How should we respond to this reality that facts don’t seem to count for much? What does this say about us? Is it a good or a bad thing that people are moved emotionally rather than rationally? If this is just how it is, how should that reality be used in a positive way?

What do you think?

Tags: Facts, Integrity