Rants: The Truth about Honesty
How hard is it to tell the truth? Or maybe, to be more exact, how hard is it to be honest with another person? This is all just basic communication. You ask me how I am, I tell the truth (well most of the time). I ask you what you are eating for dinner, you tell the truth. No need to make up some elaborate story about that, right? I ask you what you thought of the last book you read and you tell me the truth. You ask me what I thought of the last episode of Sons of Anarchy and I tell you what I thought. Not that difficult, right?
I haven’t written many rants on here lately… Not because I haven’t had any, or because all of a sudden I became the happiest person in the world without anything to complain about (utopia? Wherever another human being is to be found I am sure I will find something to complain about). I’ve just been busy, a lot of it working, or sitting around watching people interact with each other, mainly in the dark confines of bars way after what would be considered a “normal” bed time. And the recurring theme that seems to have come up, randomly over the past few weeks, with different groups of people (or just one person alone for that matter), is honesty. Or maybe Honesty, with a capital H. Let’s just make it sound important, because for something so simple, it seems to be one of the most difficult things for many people to actually grasp.
I think my main rant is about the fact that wherever it
would be just so easy to tell the truth (with a yes/no response), people tend
to instead make up some crazy story that is as far from the (easy) truth that
can be, and once it has come out of their mouth they can’t retract it anymore.
Or are too scared to, and have to continue playing along with the stupid story
that they made up until it becomes something so big that they can’t get away
from it anymore. But we all know the truth about these types of these
situations… They never stay hidden for long, and once the person who has been
lied to finds out then any kind of trust is just broken. And once trust is
broken, how can you go back to believing the person again. If they can’t tell
the truth about one thing, then where is the line drawn between what is real
and what is a lie in anything they say?
I get it, it’s sometimes really scary to actually tell
someone how you feel (about life, about them, about anything personal), but isn’t
it actually then better just to keep your mouth shut if you don’t think you can
say the truth? This is coming from someone who has a real hard time talking
about anything that is feeling-related because I don’t trust many people not to
throw it back in my face. I refuse to lie though. I’ll just say I don’t want to
talk about it. I know that’s not much better, but I would much rather someone
tell me that than the exact opposite of what they are really thinking. Then
again when someone asks me straight out what I think about something, and I
feel that they merit a proper response, I will tell the truth. It never even
crosses my mind to make up a lie, because what’s the point? So I really don’t
get these people who just have to lie.
Just be HONEST. It’ll save everyone involved from a lot of
hurt and anger and confusion down the road.
Just a few of the stupid lies and stories I have heard, or
heard about over the past couple of weeks:
“Yeah I don’t mind.” (I really do mind and am now going to
use this against you later on)
“I like you and am not seeing anyone else.” (I am but I want
you to stick around for a while longer so I’ll just lie about it)
“I’m not going to be able to make it because I have stuff to
do at home.” (I made better plans with another group of friends but am too
scared to hurt your feelings)
“I totally agree with what you are saying!” (I don’t but I
am too scared to actually talk about my own thoughts on the subject).
Blah. People. So boringly predictable at times. Why make
your life so more difficult by being a hypocrite and a liar when you can just
tell the truth and be a genuinely nice person?
Rant over.