Do you simply recommend an outfit based on your opinion (because that is what she asked) or do you elaborate and tell her all the reasons to wear one and not the other? Did the invitation to be honest come with an opportunity to explain how you came to a conclusion or did you just deliver it along with your opinion anyway? What is it that stops you saying more than you need to say because it is superfluous?
Instincts may warn you to stop talking if there is a chance that your reasons could open up a can of emotional worms for your friend! Equally, wasn’t it up to her to set the boundaries so you would know if you could cross that fine line in the first place? I am not sure that such a rigid approach can be taken in this particular instance. You could be the type of person who says it ‘how it is’ or you could be tactful in your delivery, in keeping with being honest – and know when to stop talking.
However, Honest may be unduly influenced by several factors. If Dishonest poked its nose in, you could have told her what she wanted to hear (which may not be your truthful reply) – which arguably isn’t giving her the honest answer she asked you for originally. If you provide your friend with more information than she needs it could lead to confusion and mixed messages; she will be none the wiser after asking.
Why not tell her which outfit to wear and only give her the positive reason for wearing it? A winning reply; not only did you state which one to wear you provided a clear reason as to why. Does she need to know why the other options aren’t suitable? Probably not, unless she asked!
It is unlikely you are a mind reader and as this is an out-of-court settlement… crossing the line will be usual practice. The only bar you will be allowed back into, should you have overstepped the mark, is a public bar to buy her a drink to apologise if you have been too honest!
When we ask people for their advice or opinion we tend to expect it to come from a source of honesty, even if it isn’t what we wanted or expected to hear at the time. We ask teachers, doctors and lawyers to give us their honest opinions and they will follow a professional code of conduct. We ask our friends and our family for their honesty and may give them a little more leeway to insult us with the truth or trust that they will be diplomatic! We hope that people will think about how they communicate their honesty and whether they need to dress it up to suit the occasion or simply deliver it with no frills attached.
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One day, Honest was pondering over a situation it had been asked to resolve. It looked into the mirror and said, “I am not sure if I can be honest enough with everyone today so maybe I have to be more economical with the truth”. It felt emotional and torn because Honest didn’t lie. Honest could shape the truth to fit but this was only a temporary method to avoid confirming the truth that still needed finalising. It wasn’t prepared to lie and lose the trust of the people, and it certainly was not going to move over to the dark side. If Honest was ever misguided and found itself on the wrong side of right, it would like to think it was down to an innocent mistake that it could afford to explain and not because it was overthrown by Dishonest. It would rather choose to die with honour and be remembered for its good values than be accused of foul play at the last minute.
Honest has to do the dirty jobs sometimes and unfortunately someone can get hurt. In an attempt to be economical with the truth, Honest will upset someone. It can be misconstrued as a lack of honesty, which isn’t the same as being dishonest. Dishonest usually equates to telling lies whereas a lack of honesty implies that it was simply missing in the first place. No one was necessarily being lied to, but Honest didn’t show its true colours. It hid back from the front line to observe. Some may consider this cowardly but what was Honest supposed to do? If it led everyone into battle it could have been accused of sabotage without any supportive evidence that going into battle would have been the answer. If it remains in its ivory tower watching everyone below run around confused, negatively discussing Honest behind its back, then by the time it does come down to meet its people, it is feeling guilty of malpractice! As it bumped into Guilt on the winding staircase, on its descent, it took the baton and is now under its spell (until it drops over the railings). Not everyone appreciates the dilemmas Honest can face in its day-to-day work and sometimes it has to make difficult decisions.
Company mergers and acquisitions are not decisions that can be taken lightly by the board of directors that are buying or selling a market share. Honest will be invited along as part of the package, playing an integral role throughout, and it will be relied upon heavily to influence both parties involved to make the right decision.
Honest may decide to be economical with the truth when it comes to working with Human Resources – HR as it is commonly known. It is used to working with royalty day in and day out, and whilst HR is not royalty per se, anyone who has worked in an HR environment may say there is little difference between the two hierarchies! Honest will have to be evasive and remain calm and respectful when challenged by the workforce without actually caving in and telling the truth or a lie! HR will need to inform everyone that business change is imminent and these changes will impact on the organisational objectives. Of course, what they are trying to do (which is understandable) is avoid misleading the employees and creating anarchy. HR hasn’t got all the answers yet and could end up swimming for dear life in murky waters, becoming entangled in the reeds, if it makes a poor judgement.
The company cannot afford to make announcements that are not yet formalised. Therefore being economical with the truth will ensure that Good Judgement has a chance to develop. HR must ensure that PJ doesn’t run around like a free radical leaving a mark on each employee with whom it comes into contact – maybe we should have put PJ in with the other anti-nutrients; it can cause damage when it doesn’t have controlled access! Just in case you have dipped into this sandwich without trying the others, PJ stands for Poor Judgement. It sat alongside Good Judgement in the foods enriched with good nutrition section; it just needs a little education. I don’t know about you but every time I talk about PJ I get this sense that it is a serious attention seeker. I can’t help but picture it walking around with shoulders hunched and hands in its pockets, its cartoon face having eyes far too big for it, verging on a caricature depicted in a children’s cartoon. It has an angular face with a jutty-out jaw and a baseball cap back to front that makes you want to reach out and give it a big hug – but PJ would be too embarrassed. After all, it is trying to befriend Dishonest, so it won’t appreciate any sentimental interventions!
So Honest is taking instructions from HR who, in turn, is taking its instructions from the board of directors. Honest has to make sure it keeps up with all the ifs, buts and maybes that will be batted around, so it will be important that it thinks before it speaks and remains impartial just until HR has been given a free rein to speak to its people with confidence.
The last thing we would want to see happen is for Honest to be denounced before it has had a chance to acquire all the facts and deliver these with the support of its emotional fellowship that has been forming in the background. If it didn’t let Dishonest dethrone it at the start, it is not going to be dethroned by a bunch of employees who aren’t yet acquainted with the truth. If it pushes Honest too far it may end up colluding with PJ who is now bored of being good like a child who has been sitting in the back seat on a car journey for far too long. Honest could end up being influenced to tell a little white lie or bend the truth to get them off its back!
People don’t always appreciate honesty but they don’t always want to be insulted by having the ‘economical with the truth’ side of things bestowed upon them, as if softening the blow now will somehow change the shape of the truth when it finally arrives! Although this is an assumption that may never be proven, the bendy truth is like a credit card which can be helpful in the moment but has to be paid for later. The moral to this story is be careful how far you bend the truth before the card snaps rendering it useless – even though it
’s credible, if it’s broken you can’t bend it back again and no one will ever know the truth!
People don’t like dishonesty even if they practise dishonesty; it is a one-way street. I am sure you’ve all seen the films based on a New York drama that underpins the darker side of Italian life on the streets that usually has me smiling because they are often up to no good and mischievous. The dialogue is accentuated and I end up trying to impersonate one character or another because they sound so ‘cool’, even if they are running around with sawn-off shotguns and beheading their rivals because they said the wrong thing at the wrong time. You don’t want to be dishonest to these guys!
So what is it exactly that people want you to be? What if it’s not about you?! What if they are asking something from you that you cannot give and it is clear that it probably wouldn’t matter what you said – you won’t please them. It’s often about the other person and their expectations. Maybe they don’t like to hear the truth and therefore you have to allow them to go and work out what they do want – for themselves. You may want to be helpful and justify your train of thought but help doesn’t work if it isn’t recognised as a form of help to the other person, and who says that what you are offering is helpful?
Can we say that honesty is the best policy? Some would argue not… Some would probably say that Honest is behaving economically most of the time in each corner of the world and occupies space for a very good reason. Honest and Dishonest are on opposite sides attracting and opposing each other, keeping the planet spinning on its axis so that an element of the truth, which sits somewhere in between on a budget, can be appreciated. These two extremes may meet halfway and blend together to compromise the truth which can work sometimes, depending upon each other’s agenda and any settlement involved. Other times emulsions, formed in the heat of the moment, begin to separate like oil and water, as both sides choose to resist one another’s charms, realising that they aren’t compatible. They simply cannot work together!
Everyone will have a different relationship with the word honest and, depending on their own experiences, they may decide when honesty is the best policy or if circumstances can keep it under wraps until the time is right for it to reveal itself – if at all.
We have learned that Honest isn’t a ruthless character and seems to understand the complexities that exist while delivering its honesty. Sometimes, it could do with a little direction when its blunt delivery of ‘a matter of fact’ rattles the cage of its recipient, saying, “I am just being honest with you!” There may still be a fine line to keep in mind but maybe you don’t feel the need to wait for permission on every occasion. In fact, in some instances – if you waited for permission to be honest with someone – you may wait a very long time. Honesty may still be based on perspective – so tread carefully!
One of the other points the alien made in its report on Failure, which wasn’t elaborated on at the time, was that human beings were either prone to misinterpreting supportive information and feedback, or they were justified in being confused or upset because it wasn’t well communicated. There is nothing wrong with making judgements or being honest but there is a way of doing this and sometimes humans need to learn to do this better.
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Yep, it’s all well and good being honest with other people but how honest are we with ourselves?! Some of us are much better at handing out free advice and then sidestepping any opportunity to share some of the same magical stuff with ourselves. This may have something to do with the idea that if you are honest with yourself – about ‘whatever it is’ that isn’t going that spectacularly – you will actually have to do something about it! Well, you don’t have to… but, having brought any of your own areas for improvement into your awareness, it would be a betrayal of yourself not to give them some attention.
When you gave out your free advice your part was done. You got to walk away with your halo alight, having done the job that Honest was enthroned to do. It was then up to the other person to take action (if they chose to do so). But if your honesty was reflective of passing judgement that needed to look in the mirror, then be prepared, in case honesty decides to do a U-turn as guided by your opponent and come back to find you!
Challenging and managing conflict, though, is a huge area to explore. If you have been silently tolerating someone else’s poor behaviour or listened to comments that have become tiresome and always seem to be directed towards you, then it may be time to challenge. Once you have found the courage to be honest with yourself, then being honest with someone else, as a result, can set you emotionally (or physically) free. This is especially true when one person is having a profound impact on another person’s wellbeing. The reason you challenge may have something to do with recognising that it may be time to be honest with yourself and take positive steps to change a relationship with someone or something that isn’t working for you in your life.
Being honest with yourself in how you choose to live your life – how you decide to walk your path – can be challenging. The thinking part and the doing part that accompany being honest have to meet at some point otherwise honesty may not fulfil its purpose. If it happens to be misdirected or misinterpreted, then, yes, there may be consequences – that’s when the learning takes place for everyone involved. I suggest it is more about understanding that through being honest with yourself you may be able to make more informed decisions about what you want out of life. This could be a useful practice which encourages healthy, open and honest relationships to develop in all areas of your life so you have more emotional freedom.
Honest was coming to the end of its reflective practice for the day and had welcomed the peace and quiet. It came to the conclusion that self-doubt or the lack of confidence to speak its mind was holding it back from being able to speak the truth to other people. Nonetheless, what it discovered to be just as important, or perhaps even more important, was the truth it spoke to itself.
Leading by example wasn’t just about gaining other people’s trust in order to sleep well at night! Honest had to promise itself that it would apply the same level of integrity when it came to being honest with itself so it didn’t have to share a bed with Dishonest and be led into temptation when they were alone together!
B*L*A*M*E
Lying Down On the Job
Frequently, you will find Blame sitting on a chair in detention at school because the headmistress has asked it to take time out to reflect on where its responsibilities lie. Blame is allowed to exist. No one doubts that assigning blame is a natural reaction when things go wrong, but it has to learn to be honest and prepare to challenge and be challenged.
On one occasion when Blame found itself in detention, leaning against the back wall in the science lab, it wondered why it was easily influenced and if there was indeed any scientific explanation for its actions. It noticed that in one situation it would be accountable whilst in another it couldn’t seem to accept full responsibility and got into the habit of finding someone or something else to take ownership. In the midst of deep contemplation, it started to think about the different positions in which it could lie. It only had an hour, so it chose to generalise knowing full well it would have an opportunity to put another spin on it – at a later date.
Generally speaking, Blame was aware it was a bit of a lazy character and took the easy option, when it could. It is usually guided in one direction or another, so it can justify anything when it is being asked to assign the blame and has been given instructions to get away with it on your behalf. It tends to stick close by to excuses and they are often found together, working out their next plan of action.
The main reason Blame gets confused, when it is connected to a perceived failure, is because it is shuffled around so many times and undergoes so many reassignments that it can forget whose truth it is defending. Blame is just the messenger – you can’t shoot the messenger! Do you shoot the postman when he delivers you your credit card bill? No
, you don’t! Blame lies down at your front door as you collect your unwanted post because it has nowhere else to lie on this occasion.
Blame knows when you are using it as a scapegoat, passing the buck and attaching itself to an excuse that simply doesn’t add up! We are aware that Blame takes its instructions and executes them like orders that have been passed down from a senior officer to his/her troop – the soldiers have to carry out the orders but this doesn’t mean they are always understood. When Blame is under assignment, it may feel uncomfortable and have an ill feeling about its mission. This is more noticeable when it senses that the blame has been misplaced.
When it is asked to explain itself it hesitates, spouting nonsense, and it is at this stage that it realises that it hasn’t fooled anyone! The line of questioning it undergoes proves hard work and it is only pride that stops it apologetically retracting its finger and asking for forgiveness. When Blame gets it wrong, and it does, then it has to learn to be humble and swallow its pride so it doesn’t look foolish for hanging onto a thin thread that could barely hold its accusation together in the first place. Whilst it is only the messenger, it can still be shot down in flames if it doesn’t surrender when it faces resistance. Camouflage may fool the enemy for a while but Blame only has to look in the mirror and it will be hard pushed to fool itself. Its reflection will be saying, “Come on, you know it’s your own fault”.
Sometimes people don’t like to take the blame or they decide to bear the blame as if it were harbouring a fugitive that was on the run from facing justice elsewhere.
Consider those times when something goes well for you in life; usually, you take the credit or assign it to someone or something else involved. So, when something goes wrong you either take responsibility or look to assign it elsewhere. These two approaches seem reasonable on the surface, don’t they! If honesty has anything to do with it then it shouldn’t be too difficult to make the right connections to ensure responsibility is correctly assigned. This may not be as straightforward as it sounds.
Emotional Sandwiches Page 20