A good friend once sent me a quote from John Knowles' The Paragon: "...I may be only a 'partial person' for the rest of my life... But partial people do the great things in the world, don't they? So many of the scientists, and artists, and innovators did great work to make up for the inner knowledge that they were condemned all their lives to be - incomplete people.
Why be a 'partial person' when we can be complete? Nurses are trained to care for their patients in a holistic way. For us to be quite effective, we need to take care of ourselves in a holistic way too.
Considerations:
Each person is unique. What she is now is a product of her biological make up and learnings from life experiences. Because of this multifactors that make up a person,she has certain tendencies which may be positive or negative that it may lead her closer or farther from self-perfection. To have human integrity means to be able to act/react according to what is appropriate to a given reality. On the long-term, to act in such a way as to lead to the end. Because of one’s unique make up – temperament, character and personality, it may not be easy for a person to react appropriately to any given situation. That is why, she must educate her sentiments to reach a level of maturity/human integrity that she is meant to have.
To achieve human integrity, a person must:
* first know herself. It would be good for her to know and understand her temperament – both her positive and negative tendencies. Once she starts knowing herself, she will realize that she is different from the others. Thus, she could not expect the same reactions when she deals with different people.
* acknowledge her different tendencies so she can start to control emotions/ sentiments that may not be apt for a given situation.
* not stop on self-knowledge. It is not enough. She also needs to think through situations and events that have provoked her to show her emotions. This way, she'll see facts about herself and the others behind these situations and events.
Self-control and self-possession must be practiced constantly. By constant practice of self-control,that is, by exerting efforts to react according to what reality demands despite her opposing tendencies, she will be lead nearer to self-mastery – human integrity.
