I’ve learned many important lessons during my time here as the Online Editor of Phoenixville Newspapers from people I have come to consider both mentors and peers, as well as those whom I hold in lesser regard. One lesson that I have found to be the most valuable came as a result of feeling professionally slighted. The lesson deals with the difference between integrity and reputation. There is an old saying: “Reputation is like glass, easily broken but next to impossible to mend.” This is a lesson that I have tried to take to heart in all of my endeavors in life.
However, what I have come to learn in these past few months is that the importance of reputation pales in comparison to one’s integrity. The reason for this, I have come to understand, is due to the fact that in life we are often confronted with decisions that put us at odds with the “majority.” I put the word majority in quotations because another lesson I learned through the sometimes painful process of life is that “majority” does not always mean what the greatest number of people in a community agree is a common good, but rather what serves the interest of those at the head of the table.
Sometimes we are placed in a position that we must make a decision that throws itself in the face of prudence, the consequences of which can reverberate through our lifetime. One such consequence is the irrevocable tarnishing of our reputation. This can often be a bitter pill to swallow, one that turns our stomach and can create both disappointment and resentment from those whose opinions truly matter.
But in the silent solitary moments which we take to survey the road we have traveled, reputation is only the slightest of considerations. What I have found to be the Polaris of our journey is what remains of our integrity. When we tally the mistakes and regrets we have inescapably accumulated, that we can look ours in the mirror and know that Shakespeare’s words still hold sway: “to thine own self be true.”

Posted by
J. Matthew Byrd