Benefits of Honesty

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Yes, integri­ty is its own reward, but I some­times find myself sur­prised at the ben­e­fits of my attempts at being a more hon­est per­son. I’ve heard it said before, but it’s eas­i­er. I don’t pre­tend to be per­fect­ly hon­est, but I am bet­ter than I used to be. 

It’s eas­i­er for the obvi­ous rea­sons. It takes a lot of effort to main­tain a fab­ri­ca­tion. Some peo­ple are real­ly good at it, but keep­ing track of what I’ve told whom is hard work. Also, any­one who is even the least bit per­cep­tive is like­ly to pick up on incon­sis­ten­cies. They may not have a clear trail of what does­n’t match, Sher­lock Holmes-style, but their spidey-sense is going to start telling them some­thing just does­n’t add up.

The first thing that helps is to be more hon­est with myself, and to pay atten­tion. Most of the time when I’m tempt­ed to make stuff up it’s because I don’t want to admit that I don’t know. When I pay bet­ter atten­tion, I have more mate­r­i­al to pull from real­i­ty and less temp­ta­tion to make wild con­jec­ture and pre­tend it’s truth. Being hon­est with myself, espe­cial­ly about things I’d rather avoid, like­wise gives me more mate­r­i­al and a bet­ter feel­ing that what I say is accu­rate as I am say­ing it.

Still, I’ve been sur­prised by it repeat­ed­ly. Today I had an exam­ple, and it inspired my writ­ing today. I was writ­ing an email to some­one from whom I want some­thing. As I recount­ed events, I became aware of an uncom­fort­able feel­ing that I was spin-doc­tor­ing the account to make the request sound more rea­son­able. So I stopped and looked over the email with a mild feel­ing of guilt, and to my sur­prise real­ized that what I read was the truth. 

It was­n’t a case of me telling some­one what suit­ed my agen­da, it was a case of my agen­da being based in my hon­est per­cep­tion of real­i­ty. So now I can send this email off with­out any guilt or fear. Yes, the email sup­ports my point of view, but that’s the point of com­mu­ni­cat­ing. The nag­ging feel­ing of guilt was a pro­tec­tion mech­a­nism in my mind to make cer­tain that I would­n’t get caught in a lie. The relief was to see it was unnec­es­sary, the ben­e­fit of an over­all effort to resist dis­hon­esty in my own actions.

Published by splicer

2 Replies to “Benefits of Honesty”

  1. Hon­esty

    I Googled “ben­e­fits of hon­esty” and your page came out first. Con­grat­u­la­tions! I can’t say much about your e‑mail sto­ry — because hon­est­ly I don’t have all the details. How­ev­er my per­son­al expeirence is hon­esty is great­ly lack­ing in the world today. Most peo­ple per­ceive hon­esty as some­thing we give to oth­ers where­as in actu­al­i­ty, hon­esty is some­thing we OWE to our­selves more that any oth­er per­son. There are a great many tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble ben­e­fits of being as com­plete­ly hon­est as we can with out­selves. But unfor­tu­nate­ly most peo­ple will nev­er know this. The main rea­son I think is because most peo­ple do not know HOW to be hon­est with them­selves. This may sound strange, but I think being hon­est is a skill that has to be learnt. We are not equipped with it from birth. Insti­tu­itions in soci­ety are not necce­sar­i­ly con­du­sive to the teach­ing or prac­tice of hon­esty — hence this skill is great­ly lack­ing in people.

    1. Thanks Gill! I actu­al­ly don’t

      Thanks Gill! I actu­al­ly don’t even remem­ber what the email was about, and I can’t find any­thing that fits the descrip­tion in my sent mail fold­er, so I can’t even refresh my own memory.

      I agree entire­ly that hon­esty is some­thing that we owe pri­mar­i­ly to our­selves. The word I usu­al­ly use is integri­ty, as that con­notes more than just hon­esty. As soon as we lie, that integri­ty cracks. There are, I’m sure, excep­tions: peo­ple who lie with con­scious intent for a pur­pose, like under­cov­er police. But for most folks, I think that you’re right. There’s an instinct to say what sounds good or even what we’d like to believe, and it requires prac­tice to devel­op the habit to over­come that urge.

      I don’t believe that peo­ple are inher­ent­ly dis­hon­est and then must learn to be hon­est. Lie detec­tors work because when peo­ple say some­thing that they know not to be true there’s a phys­i­o­log­i­cal reac­tion. There’s cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance that sets in, and for most peo­ple it’s at least slight­ly uncomfortable.

      Instead, I think that it is a tech­nique that is learned as a child when fig­ur­ing out the world and learn­ing that the sounds that come out of our mouths affect the peo­ple around us. If there’s suf­fi­cient reward and no pun­ish­ment, the techique is remem­bered sub­con­scious­ly as one that is effective.

      This is a pret­ty time­ly top­ic with what’s in the news late­ly. A cou­ple of recent posts here have to do with a bla­tant fic­tion passed around the Inter­net. I’m in the mid­dle of a book called Tan­gled Webs which is about some high-pro­file per­jury cas­es. It astounds me how dis­hon­est some peo­ple are when an oppor­tu­ni­ty for prof­it presents itself.

      Thanks for drop­ping in, Gill! I appre­ci­ate you tak­ing the time to say hello.

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