Honesty

One of the decisions I made when I decided to live again was to be as honest as possible - to others and to myself especially. My principle in life is "honesty, in the long run, will always be better."

Honesty is difficult...hence the phrase "as possible." Not that it's a blanket excuse that I utter every time I find myself in a situation where I chose to not become honest. But admittedly, honestly is difficult. You're sometimes torn between being honest for the sake of your principles OR potentially lying because a) it would be easier for you, or b) you feel it's what the person needs.

Let me try to tackle those 2 things one by one:
1. It would be easier for you.
Let's face it - 90% of the times that we're not honest is because it would be so much easier for us. Heck, I'm guilty of this. I must admit, sometimes it would be so much easier for me to tell my folks a white lie or two when I'm going out, just to save myself the trouble of getting a mini-sermon. Or it would make my life easier at work if I told a little white lie. It's quick, it's easy, it saves you time and effort, it saves your reputation, etc.

But just because it's quick and easy for you doesn't mean it's wrong.

Ok, hell no am I going to be preachy and tell everyone to stop saying white lies...for one thing, I'm guilty of this myself, and there is no way in hell that I have sufficient moral authority to do so. I can't even get myself to stop this, what more others?

But getting used to being dishonest because it would be easier for you is a slippery slope. Kinda like drugs. You start with something weak and easy ("don't panic, it's organic!") and then you start moving on to the bigger heavier things.

Getting used to being dishonest because it makes things easier for you is a dangerous path to walk. It'll eventually lead to bigger things. Pretty soon, you'll cross a line which you never thought you would all in the name of "convenience."

I'm trying to lessen this. "Trying" being the operative word. It helps that I have a much better and closer relationship to my family and close friends now - I can be much more open about what I think and feel and, contrary to my earlier feelings, I never get judged for it. True, sometimes it gets me in hot water, but hey, at the end of the day, the feeling of being honest truly compensates for any trouble I might have gotten into.

2. You feel it's what the other person needs.


Ah, here's a more difficult moral decision. Do you lie because you think the truth will hurt the person, whether emotionally (simply by knowing the truth) or physically (because the act of telling the truth will potentially cause damage or pain or injury to the person) or intellectually (because the truth will set into motion a series of events which will lead the person to doubting him/herself)? This is indeed a tough call to make. There are a myriad of factors to consider, and no two situations are the same. So making the blanket statement "you should always tell the truth, no matter the potential consequences" isn't really applicable right?

In my personal opinion, I disagree.

My principle stays the same: honesty, in the long run, will always be better. No matter how much one justifies it, no matter how much one thinks about it, in the end, there is no reason that will justify a lie. Even if you think or feel that it's what the person needs.

For one thing, who are we to judge what is better for the other person? True, there may be exceptions in certain cases (e.g. a parent deciding for a child who's not yet emancipated), but by and large, who are we to position ourselves as someone who decides what's good or bad for someone?

Remember, that person whom you're thinking of telling a lie to does not have the full and complete picture. Hence he/she may make ill-informed decisions that affect the rest of his/her life. Were we not taught in school that decisions are best made when all available information is brought out into the open?

This reason, for me, is very difficult because most of the times the decision to not be honest (in these kinds of situations) is made with (hopefully) the very best of intentions. I do not judge these people to be evil. After all, who would want to see someone hurt, whether physically or emotionally? No one, save for the most evil of people, wants to see other people hurt. Especially if it's a family member or a loved one. Hence sometimes they decide to be dishonest to "spare the other person the pain."

But doesn't that justification fall under reason number 1? That the reason why you're not saying the truth is because YOU don't want to feel bad about causing pain or trouble to the other person? That it makes it easier for you since you don't have to put yourself through the pain and guilt of seeing the other person be affected by this?

Not an easy thing huh? Trust me, I'm getting a headache myself going through this moral quandary.

But at the end of the day, this moral quandary can be avoided with one simple act: tell the truth. The complete and utter truth. True, you may end up hurting the other person - but at least the person knows the truth. The person will eventually face up to it anyway - which means the pain will always be there. I think one reason why people decide to do this is because they sometimes underestimate the mettle of the people they decide to tell the lie to. In my opinion, and in my own personal experience, people are a lot tougher than they appear to be. Trust them enough that they can handle the truth and the consequences of learning about it.

Of course, there is a right place and right time to tell the truth (you don't tell someone something life changing while he/she's in the middle of a huge meeting of course!), but at the end of the day, the painful truth will always be better than a lie told in the name of "not getting the other person hurt."

Ok, enough introspection for one day. This is what I get for waking up at ungodly hour on a Saturday. *yawn*




*image credit: www.lolcats.com