Honesty's a Lonely Word

Billy Joel has shared these words with us: Honesty is such a lonely word...Everyone is so untrue...Honesty is hardly ever heard...And mostly what I need from you.

My thoughts about honesty have evolved over time. I grew up with a dad who sometimes forced us kids to be dishonest. We had to make calls to people about why he couldn't follow through with plans made. We all hated doing that and it showed me a very ugly side of how it feels to be dishonest. Once I was an adult and living on my own, I made a commitment to always be honest. I figured I'm an adult and I make my own choices now so there's no reason to ever be dishonest.

Sometimes I make bad choices so being honest doesn't make me look good but there was still a reason why I made that choice so even if I look bad, I'll be honest 100% of the time. The older I get, the less I think life is black and white. Sometimes being honest hurts people. I could say, "Well, being honest is the right thing to do" and continue to be honest 100% of the time but hurting people isn't the right thing to do. When you're choosing between hurting somebody and being honest, what is the MOST right is less clear. I've also learned some people can handle honesty all of the time, even when it hurts but I would venture to say that more people CAN'T handle pure honesty. As soon as you get into the business of not being honest because you believe you are minimizing hurt to others though, it becomes a slippery slope.

Should you really be protecting them from the truth? Are you protecting them in the first place or are you just delaying an inevitable pain? What if they find out you weren't honest? Are you protecting somebody else with dishonesty or protecting yourself? Each situation will hold different answers and the answers get complex. It circles back to the only way to prevent these complications is to be honest 100% of the time.

However, being honest can cause some big problems and pains for other people and it can't be right to hurt people either. How does one find the balance? I have an example that caused me to process this. I have two friends that did what I would call an Intervention on me in the middle of January. I had turned down all their requests to get together. They threatened to kidnap me with my husband's knowledge and came pretty close to doing that. They asked me many questions I didn't want to answer and kind of wore me down until I shared a limited amount of information about some challenges I was facing. They told me what I should do about it and I disagreed. They said they'd be there for me as my support system and that they wanted to see me in a better place.

They never checked in on me (other than the "hi. how are you?" people use in passing) and never followed up until the end of August...7 1/2 months later. By then I had processed many complexities about myself, my situation, communication with them and other people. I knew that if they were truly concerned or if they truly wanted to help, it wouldn't take 7 1/2 months to follow up. By the time they did ask me how things we had talked about were going, I felt certain that the answer they wanted was not the truth. I chose to lie and said, "Everything's good. All those things we talked about have really turned around and it seems like the little details have kind of just worked themselves out." One of them noticably took a a huge sigh of relief. It could have been true relief for my sake but it seemed like relief that she wouldn't have to concern herself with any of my possible problems anymore.

It's been about 2 more months and I haven't heard from these people at all about anything other than little hellos. Overall, I feel like lying to them was the right thing. Idealistically, I still lean toward believing that lying was the wrong choice but as far as what I'm actually living with they seem happier after the lie and I feel happier seeing them relieved. This isn't a case of me lying about anything I'm doing such as drinking or abuse or any of those things-that is a whole separate can of worms. What I lied about is little things that I have no control over that don't affect them at all. I also want to mention that I don't have a problem with these friends. They are kind people who I believe want good things for all the people they know. Some people want the truth and won't be appeased with anything less but I believe that there are less people that desire to have that or even know what to do with it than there are people who don't want the whole truth. It's often called the Ugly Truth for a reason. I don't feel like a better person. I feel like I compromised something I believe in to protect other people but the feedback I received reinforced this evolved method of sharing (or not) truth with others. Billy Joel may have been right. Honesty might be an even lonelier word that I had thought it was.