Maths is beautiful. Maths is the foundation of good music. Maths is at the heart of the Fibonacci sequence shaping ferns and shells. Maths is important in the design of a building. The ratios need to work. The walls have to support the weight of the roof. The engineering has to span distances maintaining strength.
Maths is important when it comes to integrity too. Why? Because the word integer has to do with numbers. It means 1) a number that is not a fraction, a whole number; or 2) a thing complete in itself. That’s it. Maths lesson, over.
If you were a number, how might you become a fraction? How about half-hearted? A shell of your former self? Scattered? All over the place? Piecemeal? Half-pie? Compensating? Broken?
Do any of those descriptions fit when we’re carrying offense? We might have a broken relationship in one area and all the rest are fine, but that one area counts – it makes us less than whole.
Carrying offense is like taking a part of us, tying it to the spot where it’s supposed to be and carrying it in front of us so that we constantly check on it and remember what happened. Every time we pull it close for examination the string reopens the wound, preventing healing. Over time, specks of dust get into the wound, and it starts to get infected. Now that painful spot, that would have naturally healed if we had let it go, requires specific attention to cleanse and heal.
Have you heard of the phrase ‘to keep short accounts’? It’s balancing the internal list of rights and wrongs in our relationships to bring them back to even. It’s the tally that says, “I helped them move, they owe me”. We hold those tallies, sometimes for years, and the other person probably knows nothing about it. They’ve long forgotten. We can hold it against them and start to see them as bad people because they didn’t reciprocate, or we can let it go.
In today’s context, keeping a short account means checking in with yourself to make sure that you are whole. Check for any hurts or wounds, or any half-hearted attitudes that hint at fractures in your being. Keeping a short account looks like dealing with or letting go of something quickly, not allowing it to fester. The longer that we hold on to that thing, the longer our ‘account’ and the easier for it to get out of balance. What is making us compromise? What is stressing us out? Can we identify those things early and deal with them so that we don’t end up broken?
Being complete in yourself does not imply that you become a hermit or live off grid. It raises the question – are you seeking completion by finding a part of yourself elsewhere? It might be approval, it might be a ‘better half’, it might be identity. You will never find others to complete you.
It works better if you are already an engineer before you get a job with the title of engineer. Disasters happen when identity is out of order. Work on yourself, heal, grow. Others cannot do that for you.
No one is going to fill that hole. It’s not what we’re designed for. We can cover it for you, but you know it’s there and will continue to feel it until you heal. If you enter into a job or a relationship to fill a hole, you are heading for disappointment.
Our natural bent is to cover our shortcomings because allowing someone else to cover them requires vulnerability. We end up presenting ourselves as someone we’re not.
Presenting yourself as someone you’re not lacks integrity.
So what does integrity mean? 1) the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; 2) the state of being whole and undivided; 3) the condition of being unified or sound in construction.
We can be honest about our shortcomings. Everyone has them. Giving people an accurate picture of who we are allows them to find ways to complement our skills in the workplace or understand where we’re coming from and our current capacity.
When we receive positions of authority or go through a crisis, our true nature amplifies. Where we are broken also amplifies. We either get better at masking and covering our flaws, or our brokenness and desire for others to meet our needs starts affecting others. This is where strong moral principles are tested.
When you’re under pressure are you the same person? Can you carry pressure or does the pressure divide you? Does your life at home reflect the same person as at work or do colleagues and family describe your character differently?
A structurally sound building has strong foundations and the right strength of bracing to carry the weight required. A skyscraper has deeper foundations and stronger walls than a single story house.
Different materials go through different processes to strengthen them. Something that is going to support a tall building needs to be strong enough to hold together when it’s carrying weight.
A few weeks ago, my husband saw a phrase etched onto a path: No pressure, no diamonds.
A diamond is formed from intense heat and pressure, crystallising from its previous form. It is pressed from every side. Hollows do not survive the process. A diamond endures even as it is transformed from a lump of carbon to a precious stone.
When you deal with your hollows and shortcomings, you are actually building strength into your being. When you overcome obstacles and allow yourself to heal, you bring strength to a crisis that might crush someone else. Just because your story is hard does not disqualify you from integrity. If you endure and allow yourself to become whole, you become capable of something extraordinary. Maths measures the pressure you endure. Where your pressure is greater than someone else’s, the healed version of you may be capable of carrying a heavier weight.
Those with integrity have strength to support and hold things together in a way that others cannot. Sometimes they are hidden behind the lining, sometimes they are on display in the centre of the room, but people who are whole are vital under pressure. Without them a structure – organisation, family, friendship circle, community – may divide or collapse.
Becoming whole takes healing. It takes time. Usually, it takes forgiveness or reconciliation.
Our bodies are designed to heal, given the right conditions. Could that apply to our hearts and minds too?
If you are broken, take time to heal. Tend and cleanse that wound. Let it go. Take things easy. This is not the time to test your strength. Pressure at this stage may slow the healing process.
Once you are healed, once you are whole, your beauty shines at a deeper level. As you begin to carry weight, you become a pillar of strength where once you needed support. As you emerge, like a fern frond, your unique equation unfurls to be seen and appreciated for what it is. You story of healing becomes music to another’s soul.
Don’t give up when the pressure seems great. Allow transformation to take its course and marvel at what you become when integrity is at your core.
