Integrity

"

I promised myself today.

It hit different 

It sounds different 

It makes difference a beautiful taste 

It's ecstatic 

It's transformative 

It is so bubbly.

I made a promise to myself 

And I don't want to break it.

I choose to promise myself things 

Not the tangible ones 

Yes 

They are tangible 

But not the holdable tangible like you know it.

I made a promise to myself to be 

Faithful 

Loyal 

And 

Honest

I made a promise that I don't want to ever break 

To take care of my skin 

To take care of my allocated space 

To take care of my mind 

To take care of myself

To make everyday count 

To do it afraid 

To be a star 

To love unrestrained 

To give not begrudgingly 

To surrender in truth 

To fight for the right cause 

To say yes when I mean yes 

To say no when I mean no 

To believe that I deserve the best 

To believe that nothing and absolutely nothing is impossible 

To read vast and strive to understand 

To honor all men 

To be spiritual and not religious 

I promise myself to make everyday count 

To smile when I want to 

To laugh whenever I want to 

To dance in the rain and the street 

Because even if I am growing 

I am still childlike not childish 

I make a promise to myself to do it imperfectly and learn from it 

To not be cowered into hiding by the imaginary voices I create In my mind and then give them a stage to amplify that sound by giving them reasons to still exist."

A friend of mine sent that to me, it's longer than that but I had to take some verses out of it to talk about. When I got the message from her, I thought she was judging me cos the texts just screams me(hypocrite me btw), but reading on I realized alas it is not so for the world doesn't revolve around me( though I wish it did, imagine the things I could get away with...hmmmm....)but then we're all guilty of this, making promises to ourselves and sometimes not bring able to live up to those promises and though it might not be our fault, we still beat ourselves over it. I've always loved this trait INTEGRITY it looks so simple for such a strong word, IN-TEH-GREE-TI, but it's one of the powerful traits a man can have( in my opinion before some who believe otherwise will bite me), why do I say so? Cos I believe integrity to be giving your word and standing with it even when it'd be easier to change it. Integrity breeds respect, friendship, loyalty and so on but unfortunately not every one of us can claim to have it but I digress, now you might be wondering how integrity fits into this picture, well that's because it's the solution to the problem ( bibidi,bibidi boo, a splash of fairy dust and Viola)like I said earlier we all make promises and tend to fail it either cos we're not strong enough, courageous enough or brave but imagine what our life would be like if we had that dash of integrity in it( you're imagining it aren't you) imagine if we had decided to stick to those truths we believe in instead of letting peer pressure, family influence or even society sway us, we'd have a whole lot of enemies (yup no error there cos honestly nobody likes a truth teller always) but at the same time, we'd gain a whole lot of friends and respect and less regrets. Picture this, imagine we promised that we'd read at least one book a week and we kept to it, we'd gain knowledge and wisdom, imagine we promised that we'd make at least one friend or go out once a month to socialize we'd probably be popular or if you're a wallflower like me, you'd just end up knowing more people but still, it'd make a difference in your life. 

   A lot of those regrets in our minds stems from the fact that we weren't able to stick to our words, those relationships, those friendships,our academics, a whole lot of things in general would probably be different , and I'm not saying automatically we'd be perfect, nope, even God knows we can't be perfect, that's why he created us with flaws, so having this formula doesn't automatically make us perfect, instead it directs us (kinda like guidelines), helps us know which choices to make when dealing with some situations.

     Now if you're like me that's lacking this beauty in our lives, no need to overthink it(I've already done that for all of us), all we need to do is make that conscious effort to change, that's all, easy as pi (though I'd prefer this pie). We just need to pull up our big girl/boy panties and be brave, it's gonna be terrifying but I guarantee you that the reward is worth it, with the improvements in all areas of our lives, it's definitely gonna be worth it. At least if people are gonna talk about us behind our backs, let us give them some ammunition, the good kind and let out names and loyalty defend us

    Let us be those ones that our friends and even family can count on and even brag about in private and public, let us walk with our heads held high cos we're different, the one percent of the one percent (those that posses integrity in this Yahoo boys generation)