Thinking thoughts...

I've been thinking about ethics and integrity again...

Each time I examine what exactly it is that makes me "tick" I find that there is some little moral to the story to be found - that things maybe aren't as black and white as they seem in the heat of the moment.

I recently did one of those Meyers Briggs type tests where ya fill in a bunch of yes and no questions and once it's all done they tell ya what "type" you are.

I am Joe Normal.

What a concept...that someone as puzzled as I am could be considered normal...I used to see myself as cutting edge...or wise...or at the very least smart...and now I just see myself as a work in progress...

Which brings me to my epic thoughts of the day....once upon a time I belonged to a club of women from all over the world for and for a couple of years I reveled in the "belonging"...I started out as a "wanna be" and then graduated to a "maybe" and then became an official part of the sisterhood...

To the outward eye this club was everything that I needed at that time in my life - and I guess I got into it with some sort of naivete. I really felt from my heart that these people that I was involved with were an integral part of my life...I laughed with them, I cried with them, I loved them and I thought that they loved and respected me...

...but what happens in life is that eventually people prove themselves to be infallible or human and when yer not watching the proverbial hits the fan...(pay attention now...this is where the great moral question comes in to play...)

So to proverbial hits the fan and the group splinters...and while I am heart broken to loose all of these people that had become my sisters, I had to, for the sake of my "integrity" err on the side of the people that I believed in...the people that I had held in such high esteem that I had joined the group in the first place....the people that I was so sure wouldn't play games with my integrity.

Long story short...there was no right or wrong. There was no black or white. What there actually was was perceptions of grey. Some hateful things were said to me in the heat of the moment. Over a very short period of time (possibly a month or two) I found out that I'd been lied to and as a result I severed all ties with everyone...both sides of the fence.

So now here I am - a year or so down the road - and I find that I don't care that I was lied to by some, and I don't care that there was some mean/disrespectful things said to or about me...what I care about is that I miss those relationships in my life...and I wish with all my heart that the mean or disrespectful things had never happened....that I hadn't judged nor been judged

I wish that those people that I left behind knew that I forgave them their anger, that they knew that "things" are almost never as they seem...and that at the end of the day...forgiving is possibly the most important integrity one can live by.

Do I believe that this is proof that I was right and they were wrong?...No...it's simply proof that time changes reality...and that life is relative to the moment...not the past nor the present...

and that, as they say, is enough thinkin for one day!