live with integrity

I vow to do my best to help change the world for the better. To help stop genocide of humans and other animals. I won’t stand around when someone is being bullied. I will be the best person I can be.

Poor little spider. I’m so sorry. Why is it that whenever I try to help something… someone… I just end up hurting them? I could see the life leaving it’s little body, it was an accident, but I hardly see how that changes anything. A life lost is a life lost. All the thoughts and feelings of that life disappear forever. Never more will that poor little spider experince the world. Dear ant, I hope your’re okay….

This is tearing me up inside… I know one must continue to live on and try to live the best life possible, but I feel that all I do is hurt when I try to help. But if I don’t do anything at all, then someone could get hurt… It’s a catch 22. I wanted so much to just help that spider. I really did. I hope there’s a life after this one… If not then I have destroyed a life. I suppose integrity is simply trying to do your best, but what if my best ends a life? I guess all I can do is learn from this and try to be more careful when catching bugs (or arachnids) to bring them outside… It was still alive, I think, after I hurt it, I tried to end it’s pain quicker…. I feel like a monster, but I know I’m a good person. Good people can inadvertantly do monstrous things…

In the end all we have is our integrity. I think of integrity as that which we hold most important in the world. To live with integrity to me is not the same as someone else. This will be one of the few that I probably will not check off, because one can never be done living with integrity… If I am ever in some dire situation and I still hold on to my intergrity, then I might check this off because it will mean that I haven’t forgotten, even in extreme situations to always stick to what I believe to be right… Of course that doesn’t mean one has to be close minded to live with integrity… I once heard a saying that the wisest of humans is he/she who is able to listen and truly consider what other people say without necessarily believing them.

I always want to be the sort of person who brings a stray dog on the street some food and water. The person who, no matter how many friends it loses me, stands up for what I believe is right. Who fights hard against cruelty, but who never resorts to violence, only ever defence. The sort of person who makes a fool of herself in front of people and can laugh about it, who doesn’t care, because she felt like doing whatever it was she was doing. I want to speak out against the actions of even the most popular politicians and historical figures… even if my family disagrees with me. It’s easy, after all, to dislike Hitler, but much harder to look at people like FDR or Obama and say that they too have done things that I disagree with and have made mistakes. As have people I know and love. As have I.

I don’t think of integrity as simply always telling the truth, I think of it as not turning ones head away from what is unpleasant, but purposely going up to it and understanding it and doing something about it.