Honesty??

I know this its totally random, but I was just typing as things were popping in my inattentive brain.... so, consume a few thousand milligrams of caffeine, sit down and enjoy.

I received an e-mail by a friend with the book that she is hoping to get published. The e-mail so nicely said "please be honest."  These three simple words that are used by untold number of people daily made me think.... should we always be honest, I mean totally, 100% down-to-the-bone honest? Is telling a little white lie wrong? Is omission of the truth not being honest? We have had the concept of "honesty is the best policy" drilled into our heads since we were little, as if they were some type of safety plan or details to some mission that we must memorize. With stories of Pinocchio and his nose getting insanely large and that our pants will catch on fire if we lie, it is no wonder that many of us has issues with honesty.

I would argue that total honesty in every context and in every situation isn't required and in fact, could do more harm than good. A child telling someone that they have a huge nose or a person telling a bride that their dress is ugly isn't going to do anything productive. We have all experienced a child saying something towards us that has upset us. But, they were being honest.. so, they did the right thing, correct? Are we in fact helping our children when we tell them to always tell the truth? Developmentally, young children don't have the cognitive abilities to be able to distinguish when should a person tell the truth, or tell a little white lie- so do we just allow them to continue insulting people, saying sorry and continue on our way.. all the while smirking and saying in their head “I have been thinking that for years.” Or even worse, scolding the child afterward will only create confusion for the child.... on one hand we are suppose to ALWAYS tell the truth, but when I do, I get in trouble.

For adults, we all call into work “sick” when in fact, we just don't feel like going to work or have some other important event that we need to go to, but it really wouldn't be an excuse to miss work or telling a person that you are busy when they invited you to some sort of event that you really don't want to go to (perhaps, using work as an excuse). This time of the year, there are always people around malls or your local shopping center, asking for donations to this or that charity.... and you just smile and say “sorry, I don't have any cash” when in fact, you just don't want to deal with it.