This is http://www.essayz.com/a9106031.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %GROW INTEGRITY ASPECT PERSON RELATIONSHIP ACCEPT 910603 Whether or not we grow up with personal and communal integrity depends critically upon how free we are and how well encouraged we are to integrate the various aspects of our personal relationships into a coherent whole. Such integration is both a personal odyssey and a communal odyssey. How well and healthy we are/become and how well and healthy our communities are/become and depends upon how well we cooperate in the integrative odyssey of our cooperative venture. If the odyssey is not well carried out as an at ease cooperative venture between individuals and communities; then those who are involved in the incoherent venture will not be well, will not be at ease. The individuals and communities will be ill-at-ease, anxious, tense, diseased, not-well, unhealthy, sick, etc. Who we are, and how well we are, depends upon how well we integrate the many aspects of our changing individual and collective relationships. We need to recognize and honestly deal with the multitude of aspects of our selves and relationships. It is a mistake to treat aspects of our relationships as i they are aspects of our isolated selves. It is a mistake to treat aspects of our isolated selves as if they are aspects of our relationships; whether they be individual or collective relationships. Confusion leads to many mistakes. It is not helpful to treat an object, person or relationships as other than what it really is. The fusion of boundaries which distinguish different realities from each other leads to confusion and the failure to make wise decisions based upon honest perceptions. We need to deal with the various aspects of our selves, our relationships and communities in open and honest ways. When we feel that we cannot safely be open and honest about the various aspects of our selves, our relationships and our communities we are not free to do well and be well and healthy on our communal odyssey. When we feel we are not doing well and not being well we need to look to see what is preventing us from doing/being well. Often it is our ideals, values, attitudes, assumptions, perceptions, goals, concepts, vocabularies and patterns of thought which undermine our integrity. So long as we are blind to how they undermine our integrity we cannot work together to discover how they undermine our integrity. We cannot cure ourselves (or be cured) of our blindness so long as we deny that we are blind. We must be seeking honesty and integrity to have any chance of recognizing them when we encounter them. We cannot find and enjoy honesty and integrity if we are not seeking them. It is our ideals, values, attitudes, assumptions, perceptions, goals, concepts, vocabularies and patterns of thought which lead our seeking; thus we need to take note of how integrative/disintegrative they lead us to be. We need to note how difficult it is for us to deal openly and honestly with some aspects of our being who we are and of our being related as we are. Such difficulties often originate in our ideals, values, attitudes, assumptions, perceptions, goals, concepts, vocabularies and patterns of thought which lead our seeking. The difficulties do not always originate in objective realities; in fact, they most often originate in non-objective realities. Thus dealing with the difficulties is not an objective, technical and/or scientific problem; and so experts in objectivity, technology and science are not the right kinds of experts to lead us in dealing with such difficulties. We need to identify and trust the right kinds of leaders to do well and be well on our integrative odyssey. If we trust the wrong kinds of leaders we will be ill-at-ease, diseased, disintegrative and unhealthy. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================