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IntegrityIn the summer of 2017, I participated in the Delaware State Police Academy Trooper Youth Week. This was my first bootcamp experience where I learned about the 7 core values of the academy and experienced the challenging aspects of bootcamp. It was a tough week for me, being the youngest one there with no prior experience; although, I learned by the end of this week that to be a good leader, one must be a good follower, and to be good at both, a person should champion integrity which fosters all of the other core values. I believe that this doesn't apply to just the academy, but to every aspect of life. The core values that shaped my way of thinking include honor, integrity (the most important to me), courage, loyalty, attitude, discipline, and service.. Integrity to me is not just a value, it is a lifestyle. My understanding of integrity is to always do the right thing, even when no one is watching, and to never lose respect for others or for myself---to uphold moral and ethical bearings. Without integrity, I believe that it is impossible to value honor. Honor is respect, and disrespecting oneself or others out of their own free will makes them a hypocrite if they claim they can respect an idea or a symbol more than themselves and their peers. Without integrity, I believe that it is impossible to value courage. It is never brave to take initiative for an unprincipled cause knowingly. In fact, I believe it is cowardice, and fosters complicit behavior of people incapable of thinking for themselves. Without integrity, I believe it is impossible to value loyalty. Unfaithfulness is not a quality of integrity, and simply inhibits the idea of doing the right thing when nobody's watching. I believe that guilt is a moral feeling. Proceeding with an immoral act, lying to someone for one's own benefit, betraying someone without their knowledge or even with their knowledge, should bring a sense of guilt to a person with integrity. Personally, I have lied to someone for my own benefit, as most people do at some point in their lives. Doing this makes me feel guilty because it goes completely against what I stand for and against maintaining the foundation of trust within myself, which is the same foundation that is projected to others as a result of my actions. My belief is that every action is driven by the next value--attitude. An attitude is not only an outlook towards a given situation, but the way it is approached and addressed. For example, if people think their situation is bad, then it will be, and if they portray it in their actions, then they become the source of their own unhappiness. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” I choose to use my core value of integrity to always see the glass half full. This mindset helps me cope, push through, and persevere in every aspect of my life, simply by having a good attitude. Without integrity, it is impossible to value discipline. Discipline to me has a unique factor that stands out from the other core values. It’s a value that establishes direction, order, and an intrinsic motivation to condition oneself. I know I am privileged, although, that doesn’t make me entitled. That doesn’t mean I don’t save up my own money to buy things I need, that doesn’t mean I don’t make my bed in the morning because nobody is going to see it anyway, and that doesn’t mean that if I see someone litter, I won’t pick up after them because it’s their problem. I will do all of these things, because this is how I have conditioned myself to think. As Napoleon Hill once said, “Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do.” Lastly, without integrity, who are you to serve humanity? What traits do you carry and what values do you uphold that makes you competent and selfless enough to give to others? I ask myself these questions when in self-doubt, because unlike the other core values, service is not an attribute, it is an action, and to serve and contribute to my community, I need to make sure I have integrity. I believe that this world needs good people--the ones who represent humanity for what we truly stand for and project these values to our communities. I believe that if I can show respect, be brave for a noble cause, be trustworthy, have a positive mindset, have self-control, and give back to my community with all of these traits, I have achieved integrity and am useful in terms of contributing to the progression of the world, which is why I strive to be this person everyday. |