In wholeness, strength
By
THE many different facets of personal life that we all have to take good care of simply underscore the multiple facets of any person´s life. They cover the most mundane (physical wellness and having enough economic income to be able to have some savings) and the most ethereal (stewardship of our environment, both natural and human; and our lifting our sights up to the supernatural realm). Such multi-faceted range can lead us astray: either we focus our attention on only the few we like; or we are immobilized by such a huge challenge.
This brings us to a second strategic priority, which is delineated by the operative importance we give to integrity and ethics.
Integrity invites us (indeed demands of us) to keep ourselves “whole.” This means:
• We do not focus our attention only on a few facets of life that we like or are most comfortable with. We need to take in the whole gamut, from the physical to the supernatural. This in effect is the “balance” between the different facets that we must try to strike, each one according to our personal circumstances and preferences, but in every case, no facet is ever removed from our radar screen.
• We do not seek “balance” in the sense of arriving at a happy equilibrium, where there is no longer any need to change anything. Instead, there is need for dynamic struggle and personal fight such that in those facets where we can continue to make improvements and post progress, we actually do. This is where “continuing education for life for all” comes in.
• In carrying out that struggle and fight, we never lose sight of the unifying sense of purpose (personal mission) that gives direction, meaning, and cohesion to everything we do. Neither do we fail to look at our guiding North Star, which gives us the personal “Vision” that we seek to realize or actualize at any given stage of our life. In other words, we bring coherence into our life and work under the guidance of our personal mission and vision. Thus, we make ourselves “whole.”
The inner consistency that integrity confers on us gives us enormous moral strength. This is drawn from the many different good things we seek to accomplish; our having to keep doing those different good things so they become habitual in us, and our having to try and hang on to those good habitual things we do so that over time they get embedded into our character as virtues. And it is these virtues, with their ultimate foundation on a Father, who is provident and powerful, that define the ethical life” we live and the “virtuous” work we do. Their source and inspiration being a living God, who is father to us, make the wellspring of moral strength abundant and obviously limitless.
Integrity helps to provide us with inner strength. Ethics ensures that we have a secure and super-abundant external source for that strength. Thus, our second strategic priority, framed by integrity and ethics, becomes a governance challenge that is posed to every individual Filipino, seeking to adopt a performance scorecard as an active and operative tool towards becoming the ultimate governance asset of our country.