Honesty

Honesty is a rather big issue with me, but, as I grow older, this virtue, that was made so simple in Sesame Street when whatever monster comes clean and admits to breaking the other monster's new bike and immediately felt better and everything returned to normal, grows more complex. This post is devoted to investigating and trying to resolve my problems with it.

The best place, as always, is to begin at the beginning. Here it's the question, "What is honesty?," the answer being what all resulting thoughts must hold to. For me, the definition is two-fold. First, honesty requires one to tell the truth, or for many people their perspective on the truth, without making up events or exaggerating while the second aspect is being wholly open. Omitting a critical detail like you insulted the person before they punched your nose may not be a lie per se, but it's certainly dishonest.

Largely, I believe that the first part of the definition should be held to as much as possible. For obvious reasons, lying to avoid responsibility or punishment or whatever is not something one should do. Getting caught in such a lie breaks trust which is necessary to the healthy continuation of personal relationships. The only situation where I would advocate lies is in avoiding a convoluted, meaningless explanation that would only serve to confuse someone and not benefit them otherwise. Rather than go through and explain every step of why you were prevented from going to the library, just say that extenuating circumstances came up.

The difficulty with honesty really arises from the second part. First of all, it's impossible to be completely open at all times and neither should being wholly open be advocated. Can one even express their immediate response to everything that happens around them? I guess they could but nothing would ever happen. We'd spend hours discussing our reactions and counter-reactions and counter-counter-reactions and so on to every statement. Furthermore, our immediate reactions are rarely valid. We have all made bad first impressions and seen them. We don't immediately declare our thoughts to these people. We give them the benefit of the doubt, taking the time to fully consider the whole of our encounter, and hope they show us the same courtesy. We ought especially to be open about those things we aren't proud of. Keeping our sins close to us keeps us from seeing them in their entirety. We need to get them out there, so we can begin making amends.

Now comes the important part. Am I an honest person? Do I follow these criteria that I have spent some time considering? Well, for the first aspect of honesty, I do hope so. If a person asks for an explanation, I try my hardest to make sure I am fully truthful, though there are some issues that I will steadfastly refuse to answer, which leads into my difficulties. Am I an open person? Though I try, the answer is far from yes. As I said before, there are some questions (mostly concerning my attraction to those of the opposite gender and some of my personal failures or sins) from some people that I will simply not answer or reveal that I am lying through my teeth before giving an answer. This is not healthy. How can I expect to form a healthy personality if I'm not fully open and expose myself to other perspectives or advice?

Where this gets interesting is that I don't really mind people knowing these things. I just can't admit to them. If a person guesses right about who I'm attracted to, as recently happened, I own up. It's general, probing questions that throw up all sorts of resistance. Perhaps it's seeing the people as I reveal these things that messes me up. Maybe if I wrote my answers down and left the room, I could and would be a more open person. Something for me to consider and try and work towards.