Generating Authentic Power

Our society, it seems, is set up as an accomplishment-driven world. What this means is that we value and measure each other - especially as men - by what we can and what we have done. I must tote around my resume of accomplishments in order to be seen either as a man of my word or as a valued, results-producing go-getter.

But when men reach a certain age or level of maturity, accomplishments are no longer the measure of worth.  In the second half of life (as Richard Rohr calls it) our goal is more about creating worth through what we give rather than what we get or win. This all came to a head yesterday as I talked with a friend and contemporary (he is as old as me) who was signing up for a goal-crunching program in order for him to up his personal integrity.  This man said that in his life he has seen where he has often not accomplished what he said he would and that he has not "shown up as his word" far too often.

I asked him what he though integrity meant to him and he told me that it meant doing what you say you will do.  Well, that may be true, especially in an accomplishment oriented first-half-of-life society.  Integrity is the consistency between what you say and what you do.  But in the second half of life we lose the fascination with trophies and points, so integrity of our word takes on a different texture and flavor. "What if," I asked him, "you looked at integrity as telling the truth about where you are right now?"

The wisdom and power of integrity at that point would look like telling others how much being out of integrity in the past has cost you.  You could look at the wounds and scars you have and say, "This is where I failed to do suchandso a thing, and here is what happens when you don't do that." and so on.  How powerful it is to be fully present to one's failures and the lessons learned from them, instead of pretending that history didn't teach him anything and having him try to (once again) white knuckle through another program of goals and accomplishments. Doing the later would no doubt result in another imbalanced list of losses and a few wins, and further the evidence of his life that he cannot accomplish these huge piles of goals - and that therefore he must suffer one more hit to his pride and integrity in the accomplishment world.

Enough is enough! He does not need anymore evidence.  What he needs, if anything, is the ability to tell the truth and to be fully aware and present to his results and lack thereof. Then, standing in the truth, fully aware of the associated pains and joys of his life, he can finally claim his authority - authority in his own life and his authority for the wisdom he dispenses. It may be hard to face the truth, and even harder to stay fully present to it, but the power that reveals is immense.