"Integrity has no need of rules."
Albert Camus
The other day, a friend asked my views on “developing integrity”. He explained that he was involved in a discussion with a group of coaches who were each in the process of creating a “set of rules” to live by. Here’s what I said: “If you create rules to live by, sooner or later you'll encounter the situation where wisdom will have you break them. Living in accordance with wisdom is the ultimate integrity.” In this article, we’re going to be looking at what that means.
“Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague.”
Hendrik Poinar
Evolutionary Biologist
To understand the costly and life-damaging phenomenon of workplace stress, it’s useful to have a brief look at history. The bubonic plague was once the scourge of Europe, killing millions and destroying entire communities. For centuries, people were powerless to stop this devastating illness. Why? Because they didn’t understand what caused it. Today, we know that the bubonic plague is a bacterial infection, spread by fleas, but in medieval times, this fact was invisible to them. Medieval doctors believed it was caused by “poisoned air” (similarly, the word “malaria” literally means “bad air”, a hangover from early misunderstandings about how the illness was spread).
“And in this game of life, we all search for ourselves. When I say selves, I mean ‘inner selves’, the thing that created the life in the first place. Now consciously, most of us are not aware of this. But if you’re searching for happiness; if you’re searching for tranquility; if you’re searching just to have a nice, peaceful, loving, understanding life… in actual fact, your searching for your inner self.”
– Sydney Banks
A few weeks ago, I was riding a rush-hour train into Central London (something I usually avoid). The carriage was jam-packed with harassed-looking workers steeling themselves in anticipation of the day ahead. I looked from face to face, imagining what was going on in their minds. Targets to hit, deals to close, conflicts to resolve. People to placate, stresses to manage, obstacles to be avoided, or overcome. Then suddenly it struck me:
They’re all searching for their inner selves, but few of them probably realise it consciously.
During the second module of the Certified Clarity Practitioner Programme, I got a silly idea in my head, and shared a 20-question quiz with my students. The laughter was uproarious, and everyone ended up in a really good space. And when I clipped the video and uploaded it to Facebook…
Photo courtesy of State Archive of North Carolina
This week's article is the fourth in a six or seven week series. Each week, I'm publishing one of the chapters of a document I'm in the process of writing; a 'manifesto' for what I call "The Thought Revolution". The later chapters of the manifesto will include a vision of our future as individuals, businesses, societies and as an entire species. Here's chapter 3…
This week's article is the third in a six or seven week series. Each week, I'm publishing one of the chapters of a document I'm in the process of writing; a 'manifesto' for what I call "The Thought Revolution". The later chapters of the manifesto will include a vision of our future as individuals, businesses, societies and as an entire species. Here's chapter 2…
