Integrity is a word that most of us should be familiar with at this point in our lives.
According to the Encarta Dictionary, integrity is defined as “the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards.”
While the definition is simple enough, the act of being a person of integrity is somewhat more complicated.
As college students, we have the uncommon ability to be completely grown up and dumb kids at the exact same time.
We can hold jobs and positions of responsibility, interact with adults on adult levels and go out and get completely sloshed before our big final.
This dynamic is exceptional in the sense that it is a complete paradox yet is embraced wholeheartedly by American society.
Interesting to note, it has also become accepted by society for us to broadcast our “less than adult” moments with pride to anyone who will pay attention.
With the spread of technology, specifically the advent of Facebook, it is incredibly easy to delve deep into the personal life of just about anyone.
While this is positive in the sense we are now capable of keeping up with old friends and have an excellent method of communication, we are losing sight of the fact that we must also balance the adult side of our lives.
Imagine getting onto Facebook and seeing a corporate executive, a doctor or a lawyer hitting a beer bong while his buddies are smoking cigarettes behind him.
It is a funny image to picture, mostly because it is something that would never happen.
While it is certainly plausible that professional business people attend parties and might even hit the occasional beer bong, they know that what they do privately and publicly must remain separate or they will no longer have jobs.
We, as college students, need to learn that lesson.
It would be unreasonable to expect that we should stop drinking.
In fact, drinking is a huge part of college life, whether we are participating or just watching.
With that in mind, however, we must consider whether or not it is truly important everyone on Facebook knows we did a keg stand last weekend.
As mentioned before, integrity is adhering to moral and professional standards, and we need to take that definition to heart.
No longer should it be acceptable for us to blame our willingness to be proud of things that would get us fired in a corporate world on the fact we are in college.
We need to take advantage of our years in college, but we do not need for everyone to know about it.
We need to practice discretion in our decisions regarding what we advertise to the rest of the world because someday we will be those corporate executives, doctors, lawyers and bankers.
Imagine how funny we will look then.