Actually cheating and dishonesty unfortunately is everywhere, in all cultures and countries and for many different things. There are doctors who cheat, lawyers who think they have to be dishonest sometimes, there is a lot of cheating and dishonesty in the business world and even more dishonesty in the world of relationships as I was writing about lately.
The interesting thing in this is that everybody else has another perception, another meter to judge on what is honest and what is dishonest. And sometimes it is not easy to say that they were wrong. A lawyer once said to me ‘We lawyers are there to bend the truth so far that it can fit into the law.’ For some people this is dishonest, for a lawyer this is his honest work.
And of course the most difficult thing to be honest about are your feelings. Why? I know that most people have extreme problems with that and the reason is very basic: they do not accept the truth, their feelings as they are. The reason for being dishonest is always this: you do not accept the truth.
The truth is right and will always be right, there is no reason to be ashamed or afraid of the truth. Be honest, that is the right thing to do and you cannot be wrong with that.
If I view honesty as a matter of accepting reality I feel that it is much less of a hurdle and what seemed so scary and overwhelming about honesty somehow dissolves. This entry is dear to me.
I love that you say the reason for dishonesty is always the inability to accept the truth.
When people think of honesty, they often considered what they say or do with other people. But I think one of the most frequent uses of dishonesty is with yourself! Many people fear the truth because they don’t want to be judged by others… but in actuality, we are afraid of judging ourselves! So we lie and hide from the truth in our own minds. And it is so much harder to share the truth when we are hiding from it ourselves. Before we try to be honest with other people, we should first focus on being honest with ourselves. And when that task is accomplished, it becomes simple and easy to share the truth with others!