It is difficult to temper empathy with honesty. Why, I don’t know. Seems pretty obvious when you think about it but yet it is not easily applied. I find it difficult to be 100% truthful with someone if I know the truth is going to hurt them and so I tend to sugarcoat things and carefully consider their feelings before speaking. I have always thought of myself as a giving, caring person but in retrospect I see my passive approach to honesty as selfish, cowardly, and short sighted.If I am honest my life becomes unburdened. It is easy for me to stay in the moment if I am expressing myself fully and openly without conscious effort. If I am honest my relationships will be based upon trust and reality as opposed to guilt and insecurity. If I am honest the respect I am showing will be reciprocated upon me. When I am honest I will be free.
“Every act of dishonesty has at least two victims: the one we think of as the victim, and the perpetrator as well. Each little dishonesty makes another little rotten spot somewhere in the perpetrator's psyche.” - Lesley Conger
2 comments:
Honesty, honour, truth, and valour. Qualities so uncommon and yet without them lies a future of loneliness and regret.
Your journal is wonderful.
Sara
.... You are a child of God, your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do. It is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberated others.
- Nelson Mandela
Our society does not regard complete honesty as a virtue. People who are completely honest like a child is honest, are usually kept at arms reach for fear of having to face what we perceive as blemishes within us.
The mirror is used to see and therefore fix blemishes on the exterior... maybe if what was on the inside of us held as much value as what is on the outside, honesty like a mirror, would be found in every home to help heal what was broken on our interior.
Darnell McKinley
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