Stand up for what is right regardless of who is committing the wrong.

“Stand up for what is right regardless of who is committing the wrong.” -Suzy Kassam

A dear friend sent me that quote today and it was a much appreciated reminder of the fact that being a person of integrity means you have to be willing to stand by your convictions at all times, and against all people, even when it means standing up against people you’ve cared for. Because maintaining your integrity isn’t something that can be done only 90% of the time, it requires being done 100% of the time.

Without question, standing up for what is right is much easier to do when you are standing up against people that you know to be pure evil. Standing up for what is right can feel much more difficult when it means you have to stand up against people who are decent people but who’ve chosen to do bad things.

When good people start doing bad things it is a slippery slope. It starts by doing something that takes one small step toward doing a harmful act. Then if the harmful act isn’t quickly rectified by that person they will convince themselves that their act was no big deal, which then makes it easier to commit the next slightly bigger act, and again if they don’t fix it quickly they start to convince themselves it wasn’t so bad…and little by little they find themselves committing far more serious illegal and/or immoral acts that lead to very serious consequences.

The last two days I shared blogs about the importance of accountability. One blog was about how accountability builds credibility, and the other discussed the fact that without accountability there is no progression.  The reason accountability is so important to talk about is holding people accountable that it is the very thing that helps stop decent people who have allowed themselves to start down that path which quickly turns into a slippery slope of doing bad things that are getting worse and worse until someone is willing to hold them accountable.

Integrity requires that we stand up for what is right all of the time. And its really nice to have friends who’ll remind us to have the courage to always do that…especially those times it isn’t easy.

~Amy Rees Anderson

2 Comments

  • Ann says:

    I agree that a person should be held accountable for their actions but it’s not black and white or 2 dimensional. It depends on the situation/act in question at hand and the age of a person. If it’s a child, then yes of course, someone needs to point out right from wrong. But if it’s a grown adult depending on what the act is, who has the right to play judge, jury and executioner? As an adult, I don’t want ‘friends’ analyzing my every move appointing themselves to remind me of anything in life. That is straight up co-dependent. Someone is free to share their own opinions and beliefs based on their experience. For example, some might think doing drugs is evil and someone else might think it’s ok to use medicinal marijuana for cancer patients. But there are people in the world that think drugs are wrong and evil regardless if the person has cancer or not. Do you see what I am saying? If a real crime was committed that caused a person place thing or being harm, then absolutely the authorities need to hold that person accountable and have them face the consequences. But it’s certainly not up to a ‘friend’ to take on this task. I really don’t see that in the definition of a ‘friend’ nor the responsibility of a ‘friend’.

  • Anonymous says:

    i think it is

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