Character Shows
Regular readers of this column know that I am an avid baseball fan, and so it broke my heart to learn of the cheating scandal that has come to light this past week. What some players and managers connected to the Houston Astros 2017 team hoped would remain a secret came out in full detail this week, and the news has cost three team managers and one general manager their jobs.
Rather than debating the particular details of how this all came to be, I am more interested here in the universal wellness lesson that we can learn from this unfortunate example of secrets and dishonesty. Being dishonest and keeping that secret can actually make a person sick. As two related quotes from Twelve-Step programs remind us: “Your secrets keep you sick,” and “We are only as sick as our secrets.”
I heard another saying this week (thanks to my friend Katrina Campbell in Memphis) related to character that is relevant to this as well. “Character is like pregnancy. You can hide it temporarily, but eventually it shows.” (Attributed to be an African proverb.)
The wisdom embedded in all of these quotes is that we need to have the courage to face any secrets, anything we are hiding from ourselves and others, and coming clean in order to begin the process of healing. (Hopefully, this is precisely what is happening now for the players and managers involved in the baseball cheating scandal). The best decision of all, of course, is to live our lives with integrity, in such as way that we have nothing to hide in the first place.
Integrity is related to the word integration, and when we live our lives with integrity, we are living in a way that is whole and undivided, living ethically and honestly without compromising the truth. Living this way does not mean that we will not stumble, fall, or make mistakes, but it does mean we will not intentionally cheat or hide secrets, and that we will always strive to be better when we have made a mistake.
Perhaps remembering that, like pregnancy, our character will always show in the end, will help keep us committed to living a life rooted in honesty and integrity.
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