You have seen them in the news and you met them in your office. You might have some of them among those you consider your friends. They hug you in a friendly embrace—beaming with confidence and radiating charm. They don’t mean to harm you and they think of themselves as good people—almost deservedly so. In fact, if your relationship with them is blessed with calm and peace, they may remain by your side—your charming friends forever.
It is only when the going gets tough that you will find out that those charmers lack the grit part in their definition of personal integrity. Without the grit, their integrity is more like a binary integer—a calculated switch with two positions—ON and OFF. It stays on most of the time, until it flips, usually under pressure of some sort, to the off position. This is when they abandon you—charmers no more.
When this happens, you might feel hurt, violated, and betrayed. With time, however, you will understand that it was a blessing that this person has left your circle. Soon after you recognize the benefits of what happened, you will be ready to forgive them. After all, they have no idea what they have done—none. The lack of grit makes many great things look flatter, boring, meaningless.