Honesty

People who pride themselves on their honesty must also concern themselves with this principle: The effectiveness of honesty is dependent upon a individual’s willingness to face the truth, which may conflict with this person’s desires and provoke denial.

In this case, how can one promote this willingness, regardless of this battle? The answer to this question could prove useful to anybody who attempts to be efficiently truthful with individuals in denial. In the end, it could benefit these folks, whose refusal is contrary to their own best interest. I proceed on the assumption that fact, or the conformity of thought to reality, is the sine qua non of vital efficacy. Health, joy, successful careers, and harmonious connections demand that we know the needs and capacities of our character, as well as the workings of the planet. The absence of this knowledge leads to accidents, sickness, suffering, failure, and death. Consequently, the very first object of our needs should be truth, or the knowledge of the world around us. Why then are people often unwilling to face it?

I believe there are two reasons for this unwillingness. First, the desire to understand the fact, which originates from the desire to live happily, spontaneously degenerates into the urge to be appropriate, to avoid the bitterness and shame connected with error and ignorance, and to prevent the attempt to understand. Consequently fear, pride, and laziness are barriers to the pursuit of happiness and truth. People will probably not admit they are wrong when they are, unless they have courage and humility. Whoever takes their great to center should help them develop these virtues.

Secondly, the fact might be known from experience in a happy way of life. The urge to understand the truth then turns to the urge to see the facts last. Emotional inertia becomes the legislation, proportional to the force of attraction exerted on the mind with this joyful method of life. Any upheaval that violates the status quo is denied:”I can’t believe it; this can’t be happening.” Reality is deemed unreal since it no longer tallies with the desired truth. Denial can consequently be considered a deviant procedure that conforms facts to ideas, instead of the opposite. Reason is overthrown and emotions predominate, as one tries to prove reality wrong to spare oneself the reduction of a happy lifestyle and the pursuit of another, this loss and this pursuit being correlated with grief, anxiety, and doubt, or perhaps despair.

To aid a person acknowledge an undesired truth about a radical shift in fact, one needs to couple honesty with wisdom to heighten this individual’s comprehension of their human capacity for adaptation. This capability is best illustrated by the example of people who have endured a terrible misfortune and progressively found a new outlook and a new happiness, more educated and pleasing than the previous ones. In addition, one must stimulate the will of this individual, who’s left with a formidable challenge: to begin their life over. Last, this increased awareness and this stimulated will may weaken sometimes, calling for reinforcement. All in all, against the unwillingness to face the truth, the potency of honesty is obviously hard and uncertain.