Honor your family

I have been chugging some awful-tasting medicine for the last 3 years, but it has been hard to notice any improvements to my health. Unoriginally, I had sought comfort in Steve Jobs’ words when things took the wrong turn for me, that the heaviness of being successful would be replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.

In retrospect, it was a terribly weak analogy. When he was fired from Apple, he was 10 years younger and much wealthier than I am. Also, I was not fired from my company, nor was it literally my company (as important as my contribution to it felt back then). It was merely the company that paid my lofty salary. It still does, and as it turns out, it has been impossible to enjoy any lightness with that much force cruelly holding me back, like a rock in a slingshot, impatiently and dreadfully waiting to be ejected.

Is life teaching me a lesson? Or is my employer teaching me a lesson? I only ask because

I am not getting it. Can either of you be a bit more explicit about it, please?

It’s not like I have not been reflecting on everything that has happened. I could write down a huge list of insights I gained since the events of 3 years ago (if only I ever had the discipline to take note of them somewhere), I just never know which insights are good and which ones are not. I did have a few interesting insights recently that I want to share here.

Last weekend I went to grab a light lunch with a friend, just before heading out to play some tennis. That’s not something I do regularly, but my family is away, and I am getting to enjoy some unusual liberties. I asked my friend if he had been playing any sports, and his response was a sarcastic look, seeking my sympathy as a fellow father to whom such distractions from the familial routine might also be prohibited.

He would, in fact, have found sympathy in my wordless response, but in the exact moment I began to formulate it, one word ricocheted in my brain:

unless, …unless.

Like anticipatory karmic payback, it hurt, the sudden awareness that of all the faults parenthood may foster, the lightness with which I am prepared to use it as an excuse for my own shortcomings may be the gravest of all. You may not have noticed, but even in telling this story I could not avoid blaming my children for my own physical abandonment by calling my athletic digression an unusual liberty.

What if both life and my employer have been trying to teach me the same lesson? It had in fact occurred to me that integrity is the most frequently recurring requirement of businessmen in the literature, but its purpose and practical definition have historically been quite elusive to me, or perhaps like everything else in this world, just not truly understandable until my brain has gotten a chance to tinker with it. So I let it, by studying my response to various situations in comparison to people that I consider as exhibiting integrity.

I repeatedly came to the conclusion that I did, in fact, possess the same good qualities as people with integrity, despite my not being as blunt about them as they tend to be, and on occasion intentionally choosing to give out the opposite impression to undeserving audiences. Of course, in all cases I had perfectly rational justifications for doing so. I also found a few examples when I had not exactly expressed my best qualities, but I was able to dismiss them fairly quickly as inconsequential divertissements.

Then of course, the “incident” with my friend sparked the first glimmer of a realization that my analysis may not have been exactly on mark.

Family is my top priority. I was never asked if I wanted it to be, I never made a decision that it would be — it just is. Perhaps because I did not know it would be, I feel entitled to joke about the sacrifices it imposes on me at every opportunity. Perhaps because I never truly believed it could ever be, I unduly accuse myself of dishonesty when I declare to my boss that I leave work at 5PM to be with my family, and then I provide false proof of my accusations by still doing so when my family is away. Whereas my boss couldn’t see through the false lies, I am sure my wife knows that I lie when I complain to her that I cannot do my best work because of my family duties.

After reading that last paragraph you may not be so sure that family really is my top priority; you may be finding it hard to trust me on the basis of my family values; you may be questioning my work ethics; you may even be confused and annoyed by the artificial complexity of my argument, and you may have moved on to another article or be on the verge of doing so.

For those who have not, that is exactly what lack of integrity looks like when the subject’s heart is in the right place: truth that does not feel like truth, lies that are known to be lies, harmless mismatch between what is said and what is done. None of it is consequentially deceitful, anything you might think about it is plausibly deniable, because all of it paints a frustratingly blurry picture.

Going by the dictionary, integrity is both moral rectitude and honesty — but why specify honesty separately from moral rectitude? Isn’t honesty one of the qualities that define moral rectitude?

Well, I once heard that great leaders must be seen to have integrity. I have been strongly resistant to that notion, in part because it seemed to unduly exclude great leadership from my own roster of skills, in part because it seemed quite evident to me that the ostentation of integrity partially negates integrity itself, on account of the moral rectitude it requires, which must in turn include humility as a fundamental quality.

Unfortunately, I had missed that it is not us, but rather the consistency and coherence of our thoughts, feelings, and actions as we express them in the world that project a sharp image of ourselves onto others. That’s what honesty stands for in the definition of integrity — it is the sharpness that eliminates the perception of deceit. It is the technical quality of the picture, rather than the visual appeal of the subject. Integrity “must be seen” not as a prerequisite to great leadership, but as a prerequisite to integrity itself, otherwise it is only moral rectitude, with no honesty to complete it.

Abstaining from ostentation to uphold humility does not prove moral rectitude, it only proves the presumption that you have it to hide.

In fact, no one should ever accept a claim of humility as an excuse for hiding. Most people should assume it is rather due to presumption, while intelligent people must assume it is shame and the corruption it protects. Humility can only be expressed through integrity by accepting complete vulnerability to other people’s judgment.

I never truly had integrity, I never knew it was expected of me, and when I first learned that it was I had no understanding of it. I believe I am making progress, and I want to start where it matters the most. My demeanor with regards to my family has been inadequate. I must be prepared to honor, love and respect my family and show it to them and everyone else at every opportunity. If I cannot even do that, what should anyone ever expect of me?