Our Integrity, Our Defining Quality

Integrity - the keystone of clear conscience. Everybody has some sort of principle, or I'd at least like to think they do. Whether that principle is good or bad is for you and me to decide if we so choose. Having some principle is easy. How hard can it possibly be to instinctively decide that certain things are right and certain other things are wrong, or that rightness and wrongness are purely circumstancial?
Then life throws you a curve ball, or crashes you full force, head first into a concrete wall. When you come to and feel the ache in your head, see the world spinning around you, face the puddle of blood in which you lie and struggle to peel yourself off the ground, how will you react? Things won't look quite as clear as they did before, your surroundings won't look so familiar, and dammit you're bleeding! Is there anyone there to hold your hand? Is anyone going to show you the way? They may very well not. They'll look at you, and they'll panic, and their judgements will only be about as useful as your own. Your principles won't help you.
Or maybe they will. It's all a game in the end, anyhow. You establish principles and values, you hit the wall, and your integrity is put to the test. How do you measure up? Are your principles still in place? Do you act in accordance with them? Does it turn out that you were wrong? Or are you just too weak to finish what you started? Do you persevere?...