The Importance of Honesty

My journey with honesty has mirrored my journey with people: sometimes unstable, completely neglected, or entirely embraced. When I was a little boy, my mum said she could never trust my word. My family was being torn apart, and I desperately wanted to create alternative realities to live in. That period didn’t last long after "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" hit a little too close to home for me.

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Around the age of 10, I altered my relationship with honesty. Truth and I were what you could consider acquaintances. I didn’t always love its company, but we saw each others faces.

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At 18 years old, I embraced truth. I allowed myself to look at life head on instead of only acknowledging the side profile of the truth. I began to reflect on myself and formed opinions of my actions. I acknowledged my needs, though I didn’t understand them. I started to learn what true boundaries were. Just as others have a right to do and say what they please, I learned I equally hold the right to respond how I deem fit to their words or actions.

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Honesty is difficult to hold onto. I’ve lived numerous days where telling the truth is much harder than embracing deception, both to myself and the world. If that's true, why do I value honesty today? Surely, there are times when small dishonesties are easier and potentially beneficial for the group at large.

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I will emphasize that I am speaking for myself and my values, not for others and their relationship with truth. I believe pain and suffering are inevitable. Whether you always lie or always tell the truth, this is a fact of life.

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Embracing honesty gives you a stronger understanding of YOUR life. Our words act like vines, as they grow with time they're harder to uproot. They work by attaching your values to your lived experiences. You navigate relationships, novel situations, and life-altering events through these connecting roots. It allows you to evaluate decisions and alter behaviors if you want to experience life differently.

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Dear future child, if you are reading this: honesty isn’t always going to make you feel good. Honesty surely won’t guarantee amazing conversations for those around you either. Honesty is important because it is the record of your lived experiences and how those experiences have molded you. It is the key to learning, growing, and teaching. Instead of telling someone a lie to avoid discomfort, protect the truth and value the direction it offers your life. If you establish a boundary instead of lying, you protect the value of your word, and allow yourself space to understand your needs in that situation.

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Respecting the truth allows you to be authentic to those around you. You will find that you surround yourself with people who hold themselves with grace and poise. You will share egregious truths with amazing people, and like water separating from oil, you will learn how to seperate souls that resist you from those that embrace you.

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Nothing truly worthwhile comes easy in life. If you want your word to have value, you need to first give it value.

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Warmly,

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Seanie B