So I'm sitting here with my Blogger dashboard open thinking of a subject to write about, when my eyes catch the words "the boy who cried wolf" somewhere on the screen and that reminds me of something I'd already been thinking about for a while now, which is--no prizes for guessing--honesty.
I'm not what you'd call an honest person, but I'm not exactly a liar either. Okay, fine, I might be a liar; the lines are a bit blurry so I can't really tell. I consider myself to be like my fellow jaded 10+ humans who have long since become accustomed to blurting out an untruth whenever necessary to float around life somewhat unperturbed. In other words, I lie. And I do that for a variety of different reasons.
First and foremost, there are moments when I feel like I just can't tell the truth, "can't" being the operative word here. You know those situations, where you think, "It's not my truth to tell." Like, for example, say someone you know did something, and this resulted in you having to explain to someone else, and the first someone doesn't want the second someone to know the real deal; what do you do? You lie, right? Because, you rationalize, what can I do? Certainly not tell the truth. And sometimes, you're that first someone, and someone asks you a question point-blank about one of your deepest, darkest secrets, and you don't want them to know; what do you do? And it goes on and on.
Then there are all those "white" lies, you know the ones. Like when your friend goes, "Do I look good?" and you really do not have a single iota of liking for their current appearance, but you still go, "Sure!" Or when someone asks you, "What do you hate about me?" and you're like, dude, you DON'T want to know, so you go, "Nothing!" Or other, yet more painful moments when you're subjected to a situation where you feel like not lying would hurt someone's feelings, so you go ahead and lie anyway, until you don't even think about it and it starts out coming automatically when you need it, like some sort of life-preservation reflex.
Of course, we've also got the infamous lying before you even think about what you're doing. This one has got to be the weirdest of them all, because you don't even need it. It almost always happens like this: someone asks you a question, you blurt out a lie before even thinking about it and then, to yourself, go, "What on God's diversely colourful Earth did I do THAT for?" Because it was a totally innocent and non-awkward question with an equally innocent and non-awkward answer. So why did you lie? Have you become a pathological lying machine with deception in every fibre of your existence that you can't even relay a simple fact without twisting it around?
The truth is (I just realised that I write this down a lot; perhaps honesty is easier in writing?), it's not really that hard. I mean, I don't think it's really that hard; we only make it so ourselves. If you truly appreciated the value of honesty, and fully believed that--no matter what--it was the right thing to do, then with a reasonable amount of willpower, you'd go ahead and sail the stormy seas of life in a vessel built purely of beautiful, solid truths. That, among other reasons, is why I have decided to start my own personal campaign to Always Be Honest. With Ramadan just a couple of days away, it's the perfect opportunity to blot out the mistakes of the past and start being an honest, upright human being before I turn into a horrible lying, deceptive monster. Because, you know, once you go bad you can totally go back, if you only try hard enough (I hope so, because if this isn't true, then I am so screwed).
I feel like I should mention that this post was partly inspired by Sarah Dessen's book Just Listen. Thank you, Owen Armstrong, for making me think about something that had slowly winded its way into my life until I stopped thinking about its diseased impact. Also, I love you and I hope people like you exist beyond the pages of literature. Okay, that's enough for now.
I'm not what you'd call an honest person, but I'm not exactly a liar either. Okay, fine, I might be a liar; the lines are a bit blurry so I can't really tell. I consider myself to be like my fellow jaded 10+ humans who have long since become accustomed to blurting out an untruth whenever necessary to float around life somewhat unperturbed. In other words, I lie. And I do that for a variety of different reasons.
First and foremost, there are moments when I feel like I just can't tell the truth, "can't" being the operative word here. You know those situations, where you think, "It's not my truth to tell." Like, for example, say someone you know did something, and this resulted in you having to explain to someone else, and the first someone doesn't want the second someone to know the real deal; what do you do? You lie, right? Because, you rationalize, what can I do? Certainly not tell the truth. And sometimes, you're that first someone, and someone asks you a question point-blank about one of your deepest, darkest secrets, and you don't want them to know; what do you do? And it goes on and on.
Then there are all those "white" lies, you know the ones. Like when your friend goes, "Do I look good?" and you really do not have a single iota of liking for their current appearance, but you still go, "Sure!" Or when someone asks you, "What do you hate about me?" and you're like, dude, you DON'T want to know, so you go, "Nothing!" Or other, yet more painful moments when you're subjected to a situation where you feel like not lying would hurt someone's feelings, so you go ahead and lie anyway, until you don't even think about it and it starts out coming automatically when you need it, like some sort of life-preservation reflex.
Of course, we've also got the infamous lying before you even think about what you're doing. This one has got to be the weirdest of them all, because you don't even need it. It almost always happens like this: someone asks you a question, you blurt out a lie before even thinking about it and then, to yourself, go, "What on God's diversely colourful Earth did I do THAT for?" Because it was a totally innocent and non-awkward question with an equally innocent and non-awkward answer. So why did you lie? Have you become a pathological lying machine with deception in every fibre of your existence that you can't even relay a simple fact without twisting it around?
The truth is (I just realised that I write this down a lot; perhaps honesty is easier in writing?), it's not really that hard. I mean, I don't think it's really that hard; we only make it so ourselves. If you truly appreciated the value of honesty, and fully believed that--no matter what--it was the right thing to do, then with a reasonable amount of willpower, you'd go ahead and sail the stormy seas of life in a vessel built purely of beautiful, solid truths. That, among other reasons, is why I have decided to start my own personal campaign to Always Be Honest. With Ramadan just a couple of days away, it's the perfect opportunity to blot out the mistakes of the past and start being an honest, upright human being before I turn into a horrible lying, deceptive monster. Because, you know, once you go bad you can totally go back, if you only try hard enough (I hope so, because if this isn't true, then I am so screwed).
I feel like I should mention that this post was partly inspired by Sarah Dessen's book Just Listen. Thank you, Owen Armstrong, for making me think about something that had slowly winded its way into my life until I stopped thinking about its diseased impact. Also, I love you and I hope people like you exist beyond the pages of literature. Okay, that's enough for now.
The problem with always 100% ALWAYS telling the truth, would hurt too many people, and in the end a lot of friendships would be lost...great blog!
ReplyDeleteTell me about it! Confessions are also hard too. So far my plan to always be honest isn't going so well, but I'll keep trying. And thank you so much! :)
ReplyDelete