Is HONESTY the best?

I just helped myself to TWO grande bowls of Lucky Charms. I was starving, ya'll. And one bowl just wasn't getting the job done.

I don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe it has to do with our staunch fight for HONESTY in our house right now. Have you ever lived with a lying 7-year-old? Brutal. Most things are a lie. Or a cheat.

Ok, I'm exaggerating...not MOST things. But a lot of things. Anything that would turn the advantage his way is coursed with a lie or a cheat.

And we are standing our grounds firm- honesty is the best policy. Because that is what we've been taught, right? And we've been taught that the truth always wins, right?

I've been thinking about something lately. About people, me included. People are one of my fascinations. And guess what another one of my fascinations is?

Paths.

How do people get to be who/where they are?

I believe that innately in us is GOOD. That we are all trying to figure out Life the best we can. We're thinking and we're doing and we're living by the reality we are each developing in our own little minds.

But we're just one little mind. With one narrow perspective. And although we're genuinely doing our best to BE our best...there is a lot of room for error.

I didn't pick up a tennis racket until a lot later in life. And let me tell you, I picked it up and just started swinging it. I was doing the best I could with the knowledge I had. And do you know what the end result was? That tennis ball went flying over the fence every time.

Did you know you're not supposed to swing a tennis racket like a baseball bat?

I didn't. And my experience base only offered the reference point of baseball as far a swinging goes. That's what my one mind, my one perspective came up with. So that's how I went about my tennis ways.  

Thank goodness when I took my introductory tennis class in college that the teacher stopped me mid-swing and asked me what the heck I was doing and how was I holding that dang racket.

Shout out to the professor for not letting me keep going in my erroneous ways.

Shout out to her for not feeding my tainted reality. A reality I had created to compensate for my lack of knowledge and experience.

But who really cares about tennis. My life would have been fine had I never figured out to hold a racket and play a real game of tennis. I would still be doing my baseball bat swing and calling DOUBLE DEUCE on deuce #2. Who cares.

But we don't get the same pass with character. You know I'm lying and don't call me out on it? Before too long, I start thinking I can get away with robbing the world. You see me treating someone else like crap and don't say a word? I begin to know it doesn't really matter how I treat people, I'll still have friends. I will argue that MY decisions only affect ME.

Tainted realities as far as character development go will always matter.

As we fuel other's false thinking- their lies-, tainted reality is formed.

I can relate to this way of thinking. This way of thinking was MY mentality for a long time. My teenage years were rough because I was a liar. And a cheater. I NEEDED results but wasn't willing to play by the rules. So I bent them into a win-win for me... and me alone.

I disconnected my actions from how they affected others. I was the exception for cause and effect. I could do whatever I wanted and it affected nothing and no one.

And with that, a little bit of that innate goodness that was granted me...left.

But guess what? Not everyone fueled my lies- lies that I believed to be truth. Some people did. But not everyone.

Where would I be if I was only surrounded by people who fed my lies, who supported them as truth? Who would I be? What skewed lies would I have defined as truth by now?

Our ONE little mind doing the best it can alone... simply can't always do it alone. We greatly benefit from living in a connected world- to call each other out on our crap even when we're trying our best. Because we only have our one perspective and a lot of times it needs widening. Truth can be found when crap is called and we search for another way. {I actually love when this happens to me, when someone challenges me to think outside my own spheres. This was one reason I loved writing this post. It's a humbling but strengthening exercise to have your opinion critiqued.}

Others' honesty helped elevate me to a higher plane. Their honesty helped me realize a reality that was more uniform for all of society- rather than just me alone- ad this has put me on a path more available to success and happiness.

THANK YOU to those people who didn't fuel my lies. Because of you, my life- my PATH- changed drastically. You weren't willing to support my tainted reality. You helped me to eventually accept a more universal truth and walk an honest path.

We all know that lies can burn. That lies DO burn. They hurt, they sever, they destroy. This is no new lesson

But you know what?

So does the truth.

Families have been decimated by the truth. Friendships have been severed by the truth. Sometimes faking the lies is a lot more appealing than approaching the ugly truth. Sometimes truth rearing it's face means.....destruction.

So, is honesty always the best policy?

Even if that means one day this duo could be divorced because of it?