Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When talking about people – especially professionals and leaders of all kind, be it political, religion, business, or professional – we see the word “integrity” appear often as a requirement for the job.

What is integrity?

Cambridge dictionary equates integrity with honesty and defines integrity as: “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.” Ex: No one doubted that the president was a man of the highest integrity.

Obviously, honesty is the anchor of integrity.

In the Vietnamese language, integrity is often translated as chính trực (chính means main or right, trực is straight, honest).

So, integrity is very much another term for honesty. When people want a president with integrity, they want an honest president. Almost all politicans lie (lying and talking fast) to some degree, so expecting your president to be honest is like hoping that Jesus Christ, in full image of a living man with jean, blazer, and cowboy hat, knocks on your door tomorrow morning with a full continental breakfast of omelet, ham, cereal, French toast, and coffee on his tray, to share a
breakfast with you (and probably to talk about politicians).

So, brothers and sisters, integrity is not something out this world. It is the same old honesty we expect from each other. People use the term integrity to replace honesty, just to make it sound outrageously demanding and sacred.

No big deal. People just want honesty, from a president and from any one of us.

Do you have integrity?

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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