In “The Tally,” an essay by Anne Enright recently published in the New Yorker, the author thinks back on a childhood memory in which her mother returned to a grocery store to settle the difference because she had been undercharged for a Christmas turkey. Enright explores her feelings of indignation at her family’s morality in the face of “corporate interest” and “predatory capitalism,” but then concludes that “integrity is also a way to hold the self together” and that “honesty may be a one-sided contract with the world, but it is the only side that we can control.” Write a personal essay that reflects on how your own stances around honesty and integrity have been shaped by how you were raised and what your family valued. How has your point of view on honesty evolved over the years, whether maintaining consistency or broadening to a more open-minded flexibility?
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