Today a few thoughts about honesty. Again and again. Honesty seems like an essential key to all aspects of my life. Those rare moments when I manage to be fully honest are clearly standing out from the normalcy of my behaviour. They just feel different, there is no tension, no doubt, no self-criticism. Once I step onto the path of honesty in the conversation, it starts flowing. The first step isn’t always easy, though. Lying, dishonesty or withholding are always quicker to come than honesty. Very often lying occurs when we feel threatened or cornered. Lies grant us an easier way out compared to being honest. Another setting when we are more attracted to lying is when the stakes of being honest are too high. There are more reasons to explain why we chose for lying but for me I feel these two above are the most relevant.Being put in a corner and fear of loosing. Decision making is happening so quickly that I have no control whatsoever to withstand dishonesty.
I told a lie today. I was in a situation where I was aware and present so the choice for telling a lie was more conscious than usually. Which made the choice even more painful. I knew I was lying, I didn’t want to do it, yet, I was doing it. Doing it while knowing that it wouldn’t take me anywhere nice. Accessing honesty is more difficult than constructing a lie. Such a strange idea at first but if you think about it, it becomes clear why. A lie is constructed in the moment, there is no future thinking nor past considerations. The one who is lying has full control over the process of construction, it can go as creative as one wishes. Lie is liberating, at least for a brief moment. Honesty is different, we can’t really control honesty, it is just there, already happened and it affects whatever will happen in the future. And the moment when honesty is being shared is a decisive one which will determine what the future will be. Most of the times out intuition suggests that the outcome after honesty was applied won’t give us the expected outcomes so we decide not to risk and go with a lie to increase the chances for a desirable results.
Honesty remains very difficult for me still, I do notice more and more often how I drift into lying or dishonesty but nevertheless I struggle. Especially with the issues that require being honest with myself. Even though I cut off quite a lot of bullshit I still feel the heavy weight of it day after day. The reasons for it can vary, some of them are even considered as good. For example connecting and belonging. We adjust our truth in order to not disrupt the collective coherence and fit in. Seems as a noble goal at first but of course we know tat is how we end up in situations we actually don’t want to be in. The thing is that when continuously practicing such behaviours we start confusing honesty with dishonesty. Slowly replacing own truth with something that is generally accepted. It is extremely hard to pinpoint or distil our own honest experience. And even more so after noticing it, to make yourself to act upon noticing is even harder. It takes many situations wherein one notices their own dishonesty until the actual change happens. I realise how slow and painful this process is. And the further I go, the more of my own past bullshit I see. What do I do with this knowing now? How can I have the right relationship with my own past without falling into self pity and despair? These questions are coming alive for me more and more. As I see how little honesty there was and how difficult it is to find it within myself now, I feel I won’t ever able to be honest. And this is perhaps as honest as it gets.