MORALS … or why heroes never hurt their integrity for success
This is another chapter of my book THE HERO INSIDE; and it explains why and how we should value and protect our own integrity…
Enjoy!
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Imagine a single mother of three who lives in Southern California and barely makes enough money to feed her kids or herself. She is desperate for a job. Eventually she finds an seemingly insignificant job as a legal assistant in a California law firm which pays her just enough money to get by.
On her first day, she is appointed to look through some paperwork on a small real estate case. By chance, she finds evidence that the huge corporation Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) could have contaminated the groundwater in the small town of Hinkley. Against the remit of her job description and the orders of her boss, she digs deeper into that case and finds that the people of Hinkley have indeed been severely medically damaged by the contamination.
After several days, away from the office doing this research, she is fired by her boss who believes that she was just slacking and neglecting her job. However, she makes a passionate plea to her boss that this case is worth pursuing, until he takes her back. She must make great sacrifices in her life as the legal costs amount, and the round-the-clock work gets her out of touch with both her boyfriend and her kids. At one point, she even gets chased down and physically threatened by PG&E and their henchmen.
But she continues with her case, she defies all odds and almost single-handedly brings down this large corporation and makes them pay a settlement amount of $333 million to the harmed townspeople.
The heroine of this story is called ERIN BROCKOVICH in the eponymous academy-award winning movie with Julia Roberts. Based on true events.
Ethical challenges are complex
The story of Erin Brockovich illustrates another important point about heroes: they have a strong moral compass and personal integrity which guides them through hard times and supports their decision making no matter the reward, and even if it means taking a personal risk.
But what is a moral compass really? It is ultimately our inner guide for decision-making based on our morals and virtues; the moral compass helps us to decide what is right and wrong in every situation.
The ethical challenges we face on our journeys can be complex. We never know in advance when something will happen to challenge our moral integrity. But if such thing happens and our integrity is tested, it is important for us to have a strong ethical foundation and moral instincts we can rely on.
Think about it. Everybody can make good decisions in good times. When things are going the right way, it is easy to make an honorable decision. Only when shit hits the fan (and it will hit the fan on a hero’s journey), when we are facing risk or danger or uncertainty of any kind, it is significantly harder to make a moral decision as we are under enormous pressure and often have to act quickly.
You will be challenged at times when you least expect it and if you don’t have a healthy moral compass, there is a chance you make a decision that doesn’t comply with your values.
Integrity holds our virtues together
The other trait that decides on the direction of the moral compass is our integrity. Integrity is technically the quality of being honest, trustworthy, fair and having strong moral principles. The word integrity is derived from Latin for “wholeness” and thus implies the state of being complete, undivided, intact, and unbroken. Integrity is the glue that holds our virtues together. As German social psychologist Erich Fromm put it: “Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.”
Why is integrity so important for our lives?
Well, first of all it is way easier to follow your integrity than not to. Making unethical decisions might be easier and more comfortable in the short term but our wrongdoings eventually come back like a boomerang. It’s empty and stressful if we always have to remember our lies, if we have to live in anxiety of getting caught, or if we do not feel that we truly earned our reward because we cheated our way up.
Even more importantly: if you stay true to your moral compass and integrity you can be yourself in no matter what situation you find yourself in.
A simple example: I bet we’ve all met people in our lives who behave like chameleons!? They are different people depending on their social environment; they are different with you, at home, at work, in their social clubs; they act as an alternate persona depending on their environment. They live multiple characters, conditional on what they think each social group wants them to be. Isn`t that stressful? They normally end up feeling fragmented and confused as to who they really are.
Think about it: no relationship, neither private nor professional, should require you to pretend to be a character you are not. If people don’t like who you really are, why would you want to be involved with them in the first place!?
Somebody of integrity is a person other can count on. People know he will do what he says he will do. His friends feel comfortable opening up to him and turning to him in times of crisis. And can there be anything better than being needed and respected by friends?
Being a person of integrity has further positive impacts: Research in the field of Positive Psychology spearheaded by psychologist and educator Martin Seligman showed that a strong perception of meaning and integrity leads to significantly higher mental well-being and physical health.
Fostering integrity
So how exactly are we going to live a life with more integrity? Well, it is always a good start to look inside you and decide who you want to be. Be that person. Say what you mean. Do what you say you will do. Don’t take credit for others peoples’ success. Oh, and remember the action bit: Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk!
Most importantly we should always think of the effects our actions have on others. If guided well by an intact moral compass, our actions should express the way that we ourselves would like to be treated.
A simple integrity test is to ask yourself: if my motives, and actions were made 100% visible for all to see, would you be able to stand behind them? Would you be proud of them?
Think about the opposite of a hero for a moment. Think about people who acted without integrity. Think of Bernie Maddoff or the Enron bosses who manipulated financial accounts and established fraudulent schemes for their own financial benefit. They might have been decent people on the beginning of their life journey, but they were lured by power and money and got corrupted on their way. Quick monetary success and the pleasure and fame that comes with it destroyed all ethical beliefs they might have had beforehand. On their greedy journey, they destroyed not only destroyed themselves but also many other people’s existencies. Their moral compass was broken.
What Rick and Cool Hand Luke have in common
What about heroes?
All heroes follow a strong moral compass and act with integrity. If they do not in the beginning of their journey, they definitely do so in the end. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be heroes.
Think of ERIN BROCKOVICH again. As an unemployed single mum, she had a hard time surviving and feeding her children properly. But she resisted short-term success and even faced an imminent threat to her own life by doing what she thought was the right thing to do: Suing a big corporation who acted inhumanely and helping everyone who fell victim to it. She followed her ethical beliefs, acted true to her integrity and was ready to sacrifice her own life for the cause.
Think of Rick, the main character in CASABLANCA. Rick is the stranded bar owner in Casablanca during WW2. He is bitter that he lost the love of his life, Ilsa portrayed by Ingrid Bergman, and drowns his sorrows with booze and cynicism. However, Ilsa returns and gives him eventually a second chance for a relationship; something he always yearned for. But Rick lets her go in the end of this classic movie. Why? Because he knew that he couldn ́t have made her happy and even more importantly that she had to play a bigger role in life: fighting the Nazis. He stayed truthful to his integrity and rejected personal success and short-term pleasure. And this was ultimately better for everybody involved. Tough decision but Humphrey Bogart as Rick rediscovered his moral compass just in time.
Think about Paul Newman in COOL HAND LUKE. He rebels against the inhumane conditions in the prison he is doing time in. The sadistic guards put him in solitary confinement, they make him do unbearable physical work, they torture and beat him, but they do not manage to break his integrity. When they realize that they cannot break him, they shoot him in the end. Cool Hand Luke’s integrity was too strong for them. He didn’t die for nothing; his heroic deeds helped his fellow inmates to make better decisions about their own lives in the end.
Heroes do the right thing even though they don ́t know if it will pay off in the end. For them, it is better to die standing-up than to live a life on their knees.
Often heroes start out as rather doubtful characters and only find the right purpose on their long journey. Like in the movie GRAN TORINO. This is the redemption story of the intolerant, selfish and slightly racist Walt Kowalski who is played by Clint Eastwood. In the climactic scene of the movie, Walt walks into a death trap to help an integer Asian immigrant family who he has steadily come to love and admire. He made it is his purpose to protect and help them. A young priest, who knows about the imminent danger, pleads with him to leave in peace. But Walt walks forward into his probable death saying, “Oh, I am at peace.” Paying the ultimate price by sacrificing yourself is part of many heroic journeys.
It doesn’t have to be always that dramatic, but one remarkable characteristic is that heroes do not do good for the sake of doing good. Remember the saying “Character is what you are when no one is watching.” Heroes don’t expect an audience or reward for their good deeds. They stay true to their moral compass and integrity no matter what situation.
Remember Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder’s fabulous film THE APARTMENT? This is the bitter-sweet story of the inconspicuous Jack alias CC Baxter who serves as an insurance clerk somewhere in a soulless open plan office in New York City. CC lets his senior co-workers use his apartment for their various extramarital affairs in hope of climbing the corporate ladder faster. The extramarital encounters of his co-workers turn out to be rather noisy, so that CC’s neighbours assume he is a playboy who brings home another woman every night; which is quite ironic because is the opposite of a womanizer and rather shy around the opposite sex. Eventually, CC Baxter’s plan seem to work, and he gets the promotion of his life which was what he always dreamt of. But then he realizes that he cannot conform to the unethical practices of his boss anymore, he refuses the promotion, quits his job and is ready to leave everything behind. He had to decide between success and integrity. He chooses integrity and finally decides to become a “mensch”. He does so without telling anybody including his love interest Shirley MacLaine who would have been surely impressed by his ethical actions.
CC Baxter and other heroes do not need the big stage to do good; they do not need the praise or glory. They do good because it is their deep belief and they follow this belief.
Value integrity more than success
This gets mirrored in the moving story of one true 20th century hero: Irena Sendler.
Irena Sendler was an ordinary Catholic woman from Poland who saved almost 2,500 Jewish children from the holocaust. She risked her life by issuing false identity papers to help Jewish children escape the Warsaw Ghetto safely and placing them in families all over Poland. She kept careful track of the children true identities, hoping that someday after the war she could return the children to their original families.
Sadly, the Nazis discovered Sendler’s activities in 1943, captured her and tortured her by breaking her feet and legs. But Irena bravely declined to betray any of her friends or the children she placed in different families.
Irena Sendler managed to escape the Nazis and lived in obscurity after the war. Her heroic deeds only got known to a wider audience in 2000 when high school students from Kansas discovered her story and turned it into a play. When asked about her heroic deeds, she wrote: “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth and not a title to glory.“ She never claimed any credit for her actions but added instead: “Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did wasn’t extraordinary. It was normal.”
Irena Sendler died in 2008 aged 98, just one year after she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Bless her.
Just like Irena Sendler, heroes would never hurt their integrity for success. Success is short-term pleasure. Integrity is long-term happiness.
Many heroes might have conflicted minds and troubled psyches, but their moral compass and integrity remains intact.
“Integrity is the light that guides your way”, said Greek philosopher Plato.
True words. A strong moral compass and integrity show you the way in dark times and they are the catalyst for long-term happiness. Embrace them. Heroes do.
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For the impatient and hurried
Three steps to live with more integrity:
1. Act on the categorical imperative
This term was coined by German philosopher Kant, which also known as the “Kant Act” : “only act according to that maxim, that it should become a universal law.” Putting it simple: Always treat others the same way you would want to be treated.
2. Do what is right, let the consequences follow
Always do what you think complies with your moral compass and ethical beliefs and don’t think of the consequences too much. Better to lose than to lose your integrity.
3. Act visibly
Ask yourself: if your motives and actions were made100% visible for everybody to see, could you still stand behind them and be proud of them? Act accordingly.
