The Cost of Honesty

in #life6 years ago (edited)

Last night, I had the chance to join a discord group talk on helpie server. However, due to my terrible connection, I only caught couple of sentences and phrases. Nonetheless, what intrigued me most was the idea of being honest. Correct me if I am wrong @meno, but there was something I heard about delivering an honest content to our readers and people around us. I think this is important. In the end, I personally far more interested following an honest story than a finely crafted one.

These days in every social media existed, many of contents are superficial. These contents are created to display our perfection. Sometimes, just to fit a society standard we create a false statement and false life. We live in a masquerade. We also feel the need to constantly feed people with the certain lifestyle we picked. I admit I did this as well. I was lying to myself and to people.

Now, I would like to address this very fascinating topic, honesty. To what extend one should be honest? What does it cost to be honest? and Is it okay to be brutally honest?

The Cost of Honesty.jpg


I would like to start with my own experience.

Shortly after I left the talk, I sent a message to the person who needed to hear my truths. I felt the need to do so, cause if not, I would be creating more dishonesty that will lead me to terrible decisions. To some extent, I personally thought that it was a very cold and unforgiving message. I told that person, “ I wish I never met you”. Perhaps, it was the meanest words I ever said my entire life. However, strangely, I felt I was released from every goddamn straps that was straining. I was very content. I couldn’t honestly describe the joy of telling the truths.

Obviously, mean words and cold truths were flowing right the aftermath. And It was expected. I stayed awake till dawn thinking about the words that was said. I know that it would put a distance on our good relationship we maintain. But I couldn’t run around and bring him into every of my daily conversation anymore. Not only that the lies we created hurt me and him but also the people around us. If there was a reset button and If I were allowed to hit that, I would.

Now, to what extent should we be honest? I would say, In every aspect of our lives when it is necessary. I put an emphasize on “ when it is necessary” because sometimes we have to take an account of the circumstances. Being honest is not only about avoiding making a false statement. But also acting and taking responsibilities of everything we choose in life. Thus,we must think before we act. There’s a saying that honesty hurts. It definitely hurts.However, would you not speak the truth if you’re going to save a life and a trouble?

The implications of lies are like the snowball effect. It gets bigger after one lie,creating a vicious circle that might harm others. Eventually, somebody is going to get hurt. As an example from my personal story, being honest put a distance on our relationship and caused uneasiness. But on the bright side, it liberates me that I no longer have to carry excessive baggage. It is better than to create more lies and involve not only two parties but more people. Honesty is expensive but doable. It might hurt our ego, put us into a little trouble, even losing someone we dearly love. In the end, we’ll eventually find the silver lining. Life always has a way to teach us something.

Now, someone who is brutally honest might not be favorable in a social situation. I often get a trouble just because I say something that I think is the truth. In my opinion, it is because our actions tend to be driven by our emotions causing us impulsively act on it without further thinking and considerations.However, nothing should not stop one from being an honest individual. Matter fact, it is regarded as a virtuous attributes of a person.Finally, if we say, we value honesty, are we ready to accept the truths?


Any feedback, comment, thoughts, personal experiences are appreciated. Write me on the comment section and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

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i often tell people to be careful asking questions from me, because my brutal honesty has no filter.

stems from years of lies, getting me to the point my own MOTHER wouldnt believe me.
so i flipped that shit.

I think it's also a great idea to ask before hand if they want the brutal honesty or just another kind of honesty. However, there's a thing called construct criticism, something we might offer to that person just in case they're not easy with a brutal honesty.

A person can be honest and true to their thoughts and feelings without having to blatantly share that truth with others. For example, if I see a stranger in an unflattering outfit, I don’t need to tell them they look terrible. I’m not being dishonest if I choose to keep that information to myself. But if they were to ask me what I thought about their fashion choice, I might consider giving an honest (but tactful) response.

We need to keep in mind that when we give someone our honest opinion about something, it’s still just our opinion. In many cases, we can choose to be an honest person while still keeping our opinions to ourselves.

Thank you for your another perspective @redhens 😊 I agree about the tactful response, something that I need to learn to do better.

And it is also so cool you point "we can choose to be an honest person while still keeping our opinions to ourselves". I feel very committed to be an honest person, but in some occasion I reserve a part of my truth to myself, and I have a tone of those moments accumulated in some part of my consciousness still wondering itself "are we right or we are total muck?". In a way I feel like I can give an answer to them, like "no, it's ok sharing only the necessary". So, cool. Thanks. Greetings, @redhens!

I think honesty has an expensive cost

I totally agree, and I think people must be absolutely honest, and always say the truth, but I also recognize some experiences are out of our control and understanding, so I don't only value and put effort in giving my truth everytime, but I also give myself the chance to have a more complete appreciation of the situation I am into. In first place, we must set our priorities and principals... Over our principals is our awareness that we are part of a world where everything and everyone has/decerves a proper place, and also a personal idea of all it. In that sense, we sometimes don't actually need to TELL the truth, because truth IS itself. We are our truth. More then telling the truth, we must be true firstly.

Even though I always expect the truth, I don't consider myself a person who always knows how to handle it, because truth reveals itself in a verbal way -I mean, a truth is verbal- in situations where something is not quite true, and those situations are often occasion in which truth doesn't make a case, or in which there are other more important truths commited.

As John Mayer's, "Say what you need to say".

Good reflection, macchiata.

Hello dear @siomarasalmeron,

First of all, thank you for giving your earnest perspective on this matter. I couldn't agree more that perhaps, we only say what we need to say. I would say honesty is a complicated matter which even I, sometimes still keeping many things to myself. More, I also agree that having a solid principals will help us easily practice honesty. There's also a saying ' those who mind don't matter, those who matter don't care'.

Right now, in our "advanced" society, honesty is one of the worst properties for mens. Its insane, isnt?

The people dont want to see or hear the truth, and dont want to face the reality.

Then if you are honest, you are a bad person.

@kriptonik, I am seriously surprised that I find less honest men these days. Perhaps it's because the women demanded so? I don't know. In my opinion, I still want a man to tell me what I need to hear. For instance, if I am too overweight for their liking, they shall say it upfront rather than false praising. As I mentioned, being honest might have its implication but I still demand to hear the cold truth. Who knows that the truth might help me to be a better person?

If you want to hear the truth, then the truth is good.
If you want to hear some convenient blabla, then the truth might be cold or painful.

Most of the people doesnt want to hear the truth, and they dont SEE the truth, neither their life. This is the main reason, why are so less honest people. They simple dont know, they arent honest. This is the expectation of society. Its not depend on the good person/bad person thing.

Its depend of your choice. Want you live your own life, or want to live the society's expected life.

So if you are honest, in a society, where is no one want to hear sincere words, its a problem. They call it character error.
And this is lol.

Hey how have you been @macchiata!

“ I wish I never met you”. Perhaps, it was the meanest words I ever said my entire life

That phrase is not that bad actually, I am sure everyone has said things much worse :P

But I do understand the possible conflict when saying truths that might hurt the other person. It happens to all of us.

Hey, I am doing well. Only a little bit occupied with transitioning phase of my life. I no longer travel around and commit to fixed location whilst trying to finish my study. How goes you? @dedicatedguy?

I would love to visit your post more often once I am settled. 😊

The truth sometimes is so painful that most of us can not accept.

yes dear :D but it's necessary oftentimes

I wish I never met you

this is brutal. hahaha

hahah yep :D that's why it was an endless debate.

being honest always has a cost, no doubt... but being fake is much more taxing on ourselves.

Now, in the name of honesty, we can't default to being brutal(im not saying you are), that's not a requirement. But, the idea is to liberate ourselves from facades.

Like I mentioned, it will have a snowball effect. We will ended up hurting not only ourselves but others. Also I agree, it's better to liberate ourselves and just feel free.

This post has been resteemed from MSP3K courtesy of @clayboyn from the Minnow Support Project ( @minnowsupport ).

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