I have been thinking lately about honesty with yourself. I might have blogged on this subject previously, but it is one that is dear to my heart. My hypothesis is basically that we are unable to progress, unable to grow, unable to advance, as human beings, unless we rigorously develop HONESTY.

Now, I don't mean "honesty is the best policy" or any such trite statement. In fact, I most heartily believe the opposite - I think there are times when a lie is kindest, and times when a lie is necessary. I believe that the burden of truth being laid on another individual is sometimes the most cowardly thing we can do. To use a simple, salacious example - why would you tell your spouse of a one-night stand that you now bitterly regret? The other person "knowing" adds nothing to their life, rather it lays on them the burden of dealing with the pain and indignity. Better instead to stew in your own guilt forever, and make all effort to make your spouse happy!

So, it is not "honesty the best policy". What is it then? It is "utter honesty with yourself". And this is so much harder than it would first appear! What does honesty to self actually mean?

The first component is self-awareness. I think often we live our lives in a murky haze. We react to things emotionally, irrationally, immediately. We don't analyse our responses. We don't analyse our emotions. We don't analyse "how we really are". This is a state of ego-centric blindness. Our conception of "I" (the ego) stands apart from our true self (the soul? the emotion? the heart? the mind? all of the above?) and loses touch with that true self. So, the first step is to get in touch with yourself. It sounds very "new age" - but I don't mean it to!

Actually at this point, I have a small lack of certainty... I am not sure whether the objective is to immerse ourselves in ourselves, i.e. to obliterate the difference between the ego and the self, or whether it is in fact the "self" that must gain consciousness, and the ego that must simply be obliterated, or thirdly whether it is the mind (ego???) that must become more watchful and observant of the seat of emotion. Thoughts anyone?

Anyway - moving back to honesty. Once we have self awareness, we need acknowledgment. The ability to not only see emotions, responses, and thoughts but to acknowledge them in all their beauty, craziness, ugliness or stupidity. For example, if you feel a surge of jealousy at your best friend's promotion... it's unsightly! ugly! petty! But honesty requires that you not only OBSERVE this surge of jealousy, but that you acknowledge it to yourself. Don't sugarcoat it or excuse it (oh i'm only jealous because she's bragging), but simply acknowledge that an unsightly emotion has arisen from YOU! "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine" - Prospero, The Tempest

And now, at last, it is time to proactively and productively CHANGE ourselves for the better, right? Wrong! That actually has no part in my self-honesty blog. That is a different matter altogether, one that relates to who you would like to be, what characteristics you want to develop, what you regard as good, bad, moral or amoral. My hypothesis is not that you should root out jealousy and therefore become better. It is that unless you SEE and ACKNOWLEDGE your jealousy, you will be unable to change it, or not change it. You are merely a victim of your own self, a boat tossed by waves. Get your hands on the helm and then perhaps you can decide which course you wish to steer.

A small sidebar.... there are so many people who have a clear vision of what is "good" and "moral", but have no self honesty. Often these are the people who loudly proclaim and preach to all their ideal of morality. They will tell you exactly what a "good" person looks like. Quite aside from hypocrisy though, the saddest thing is that sometimes they don't even KNOW how far they are from their own ideal. They just have a vague sense that they fall short of it, and preach all the harder to compensate. Alas.