What is Wrong with Honesty?

What is Wrong with Honesty?

Gordon A. Wilson

Entrepreneur, business owner, former Army tanker. I have been writing my whole life, if I had a dollar for every notebook I packed full of words and lost I could be rich. My life goal has been to write novels that other people would be interested in reading. I love people and animals but find the latter much easier to deal wit

I had an image stuck in my head the other day. I woke to find it still there and knew I needed to let it out. My premise is this, what is wrong with honesty? Sounds ridiculous right? Nothing is wrong with honesty. Everything is wrong with honesty. I would say I am blessed to have what I call morals. I swear at times it's a curse. But it's who I am, enough said. I realize also not everyone's morals are the same. So I'm not being judgie here. There is right and wrong and a micron or mile of gray in between depending on who you are.

I'm not going to go into a big moral thing but honesty, that little sucker is a problem. I discovered somewhere along the line there are people who like and appreciate honesty. You know what else I think? Way more people don't. They not only prefer to be lied to, they expect it.

Back to my image. I kept seeing a kid who couldn't catch very well. The idea was to toss him the ball softly in a way he would be able to catch or at least make his best effort. Just this summer I saw a father with three young girls who wanted to play catch. The girls went across the way and he threw the ball so hard it hurt them to catch it. This could likely fuel a couple posts on its own. I love kids, this was disturbing.

I mean he was whipping the ball at them. Two of the girls started crying and it was over. Besides me thinking I witnessed a true ass hole and I don't mean this in a flattering way, the image stuck in my mind.

These girls just wanted someone to play with them. They wanted to play catch. I doubt they ask again. I started talking about honesty, where is this meandering fool headed?

Back to the uncoordinated little boy, we won't call him any name that starts with a G. Little boy is fine. OK so he can't catch. I have to help him tie his shoes and likely will for years to come. I know he doesn't have the skill, drive or commitment to move past a game of catch in the side yard. Should I tell him the truth? I need to encourage his accomplishment of catching a single ball. I should encourage growth. Right? Should I lie to him and tell him he is the best ball catcher that ever lived? I might, depending on his age.

Let's look at this kid as an adult. I am still helping him tie his shoes. It's not because he can't, he's too lazy to learn so I do it for him. We go out to the yard to play catch. I toss the ball underhand to him and he catches it once. I load him in the car and take him to whatever they call the open auditions for football. I believe it's walk ons. He gets there and is completely humiliated. He couldn't even make it into the line because his shoe came untied and he kept tripping on it. The coach guy tossed him a ball and he didn't know how to react. It was obvious to him he was not even close. How could that be? He was told he was the best ball catcher in the world.

Honesty can be hard to take. 

I will never forget some of the things my dad told me. The kind of morsel that really sticks in your craw until you are mature enough to realize he was right. Yea, that kind of honesty. I can vividly remember some, if not most of the times someone was that honest with me. Why do I remember?

Because it was hard to take. It is hard to take. At first. At first can last let's say thirty or forty years or maybe a couple days. It can hurt. The solution? Avoidance. Avoid people who will be honest. They are bad and they will hurt you. I am not talking about being mean for the sake of being mean. That gets flown under the banner of honesty all too often.

Honesty can be too hard to take.

So we lie to each other. We sugar coat things to keep from hurting feelings. I get that too but where do you draw the line. How many adults do I see who expect to be treated like children? How many do you see? Why couldn't honesty work? I don't think I can answer that. I am the one who would say, dude you are too lazy to tie your own damn shoes. What makes you think you are going to do anything more ambitious than that? I am sure there would be a line of sensitive people who would say I am the asshole trying to break the girls fingers with the ball. Am I?

Or am I just being honest?