On Honesty, or Out With It Already

Honesty is hard.

It’s awkward and frequently painful.

These unpleasant feelings deter so many people from being straightforward. They dissemble, they deflect, they go to sometimes ridiculous lengths to avoid confrontation.

And what does that net you? Extended uncertainty and feelings of paranoia, but of course that’s *way* better than just ripping off the Band-Aid, so to speak, and dealing with the situation.

(I really do need a sarcasm font.)

But, truth be told (appropriately enough), telling the truth about things can be rough, too. So many people have been socialized to expect others to dissemble, so that if you do actually come straight out and call things like they are, they think you have some sort of agenda and start listening to the words they *think* you’re saying rather than what you’re *actually* saying.

Beyond that, even when they do understand what you’re saying, sometimes the truth hurts.

The truth is kind of like a broken bone. You can ignore it, and pretend it isn’t there, but that isn’t going to make it go away, and it certainly isn’t going to get better. It’s just going to keep being broken. In some cases, you keep working around the truth in such a way as to make the injury worse.

Here’s the thing. If you acknowledge it, it’ll hurt. It could hurt a lot, depending on the situation.

But it gets better. 

Things heal. 

You move on. 

Life continues.

The world doesn’t explode into a fiery ball of death. In fact, death is rarely involved.

The truth is worth it.

Speaking for myself, I want to know.

Even with the pain, I can deal with that WAY better than the uncertainty.