It occurred to me today that there is a lot of lip service going on these days.

If you don’t know what lip service is, it’s a claim that something is important that isn’t supported by a person’s actions. For example, if someone tells you that their physical fitness is important to them, but they don’t exercise, then it’s lip service. Or, if a politician tells you that public safety is important to them, but they don’t set a safe example, then it’s lip service.

Don’t tell me something’s a priority with your words and then show me that it’s not with your actions. That leads me to believe that what you say and what you truly believe are not the same thing. If I have a reason to believe that you say things that you don’t believe, then I stop trusting you –or at least I stop trusting what you say.

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It’s a matter of integrity, really. And, when I think about the word “integrity” I always think about the starship Enterprise.

If you’ve been playing along on the at-home version of this blog, then you know that I’m a Star Trek fan (proof lies HERE and HERE). When the word “integrity” is used on the Star Trek television episodes or in the Star Trek movies, it’s usually a reference to the ship being under attack, and the thickness of the ship’s shields, or even the hull of the ship itself, is giving way. The problem with being in a space vessel is that the hull is what separates you from the vacuum of space. Zero hull integrity in space means bad things if you –for example– breathe oxygen,

Or, think about a submarine. The hull of a submarine is several inches thick and is usually made out of steel. The generally-agreed-upon safe depth for a submarine is not to exceed 800 feet deep in the water, because the pressure of the outside water on the hull of the submarine at greater depths is more than the steel hull can withstand. At 800 feet deep in the water, the sub is under a pressure that is 2400 times as intense as the pressure of the atmosphere on us as we normally walk around on the earth. During your average day on the planet, you are under pressure from the atmosphere around you that equals about 14.6 pounds per square inch of your skin. Because your skin and your skeletal structure is strong enough to handle that pressure, you aren’t squished like a grape by the pressure of the atmosphere around you.

A submarine at 800 feet deep in the water is under a pressure that equals approximately 35,000 pounds per square inch. While that seems like a lot of pressure, a hull that is thick enough –that has enough integrity– can withstand that amount of force. You can imagine what would happen if a submarine had a single square inch of its hull, where the hull thickness was only four inches instead of seven, and the sub was 800 feet deep in the water. That single square inch is going to be the point where 35,000 pounds of ocean is going to come in to the submarine.

In short, a hull needs to be able to stand up to pressure.

So, maybe part of the problem with integrity –> saying what we mean and meaning what we say, is that we are under pressure that causes us to fail to live up to the words that we utter, when it comes to taking the actions that we suggested that we would take. I can talk about how important my fitness is to me, but tomorrow morning, will I mount up and go for a run or will I avoid my responsibility and take the easier path? Or, when I say how much my fitness means to me, but that container of Oreos in my pantry is looking pretty awesome, can I stand up against that pressure?

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In my house, we have a system of chores that seems to work pretty well –if you ask me– and the kids are able to gain access to “screens” (cellphone, TV, XBox, basically anything that has a screen that you might stare at) when the system of chores is completed.

The problem with the system, often times, is that the children don’t do their chores, and then they don’t get screen time. Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth –> it’s awful. Another problem with the system is procrastination –> when my kids spend all day not doing much of anything, but then, they get to the end of the day and it’s a mad dash to try to get stuff done, so the system is completed and they can have screen time.

To which, I will often say, “You had plenty of time earlier today to do this stuff, but you didn’t. If it wasn’t important to you then, how can it be that important to you now?”

They hate it when I say that. But it’s true, and it makes me think about the three Ts –> time, talent, and treasure. What we spend our time on, what we use our talents for, and what we spend our money on (treasure) will pretty much tell the tale of what’s important to us.

What we say means almost nothing.

If I spend my money on scratch-off tickets at the local gas station, but I tell you how concerned I am about having enough money to retire someday, what are you going to believe?

If I spend forty-five minutes scrolling Facebook, but then I complain about how I didn’t have enough time to complete that certain project that you asked me to complete, what are you going to believe?

If I don’t have enough time to work out, but I definitely have enough time to play Candy Crush on my phone for two hours, what are you going to believe?

If I don’t have enough money in my budget to allow me to give to charities that support orphans in Africa, but I can eat out seven or eight times a month, what are you going to believe?

I guess, to a certain extent, many of us have a problem doing this –> saying one thing but then doing something else. It seems to be pretty central to the hypocrisy which is fundamental to the human experience, but I would suggest this, if you can’t help but say things that you are later going to have a hard time living up to:

Don’t talk. Just act. Don’t say. Just show. Don’t promise. Just prove.

In our efforts to express ourselves, we rush into statements that end up being our undoing. In a world of increasing levels of noise, the way to defeat the problem of lip service is to speak as little as possible.