WEJANGANE SIMBAH

Honesty is one of the most admired qualities. Most people say they want their life partners, children, friends, and if possible everyone to be honest. Yet we also know it’s so damn hard to be honest.  

Why does honesty elude us like this? How can we retain our honesty and integrity? 

Freedom as prereq of honesty

I don’t believe we are destined to be dishonest. It’s far easier to be honest and say things as they are, rather than twisting the facts and then remembering how we twisted them so that our stories are consistent, often leading us to tell even more lies. Dishonesty doesn’t feel good and undermines our sense of dignity.  

Yet we lie because most of us don’t realize we have the prerequisite of honesty: freedom. Complete freedom to say what it is. Freedom not to worry about the consequences of our honest expression.  

Say you find your employer is compromising the law. Can you stand up and say honesty that you don’t agree with the practice? You know you will lose your job if you do so. Can you still be honest? Remember Arthur Anderson? Many otherwise good people compromised their honesty because they were afraid of their job security (and ended up losing their jobs anyway).

Or say you find your friend eating so unhealthy, she is overweight and risking health issues, can you simply express your concern, without any manipulation nor sugarcoating the facts? Why not? Because you are afraid of offending her feeling and losing her friendship? Are you and your friend in friendship voluntarily or do you need her as friend?  

Freedom and autonomy

To feel free, most people need autonomy. Financial, emotional, and mental autonomy.  
It’s extremely hard to be honest to your employer when your (and your family’s) livelihood is dependent on it. I don’t object the system of employment at this time, but to usher in the New World based on Truth, it’s a good idea to cultivate our inner entrepreneur. (Whew, this blog Yes to Me started as entrepreneurship blog, and although it may appear I meandered around into spirituality, I actually have consistency at the base!) Financial autonomy promotes honesty.  

Emotional autonomy means you own your feelings. No one makes you happy or unhappy. With or without friends, you are you. Without this emotional autonomy, relationships of any kind become more about codependency rather than free association.  

Mental autonomy is the ability to think for yourself. It involves questioning widely accepted social norms and opinions of “authorities”.  

To be completely clear, I’d like to note that autonomy is only a desired ground for freedom, not a necessity. Because everyone is free on the spiritual level (more on this toward the end of this article) and no one is completely autonomous. We are interdependent in this world and that is wonderful. You can be honest while relying on a single source of income, while being emotionally supported by others, and while you are learning and building your own thoughts.  

Still autonomy is very helpful. Without autonomy (in the conventional sense), we are like slaves. For a slave to speak up honestly, it takes a degree of “dumbness”, to be ready to die or go on the street anytime as a consequence of his honesty. And I put “ “ around dumbness because I think this kind of dumbness is good. It may be based on spiritual belief that we are always supported by God regardless how things may look like.  

Teaching honesty to your children

Most parents want their children to be honest, yet they are unaware of the inherent dilemma they themselves need to resolve to let their children be honest. Because children ARE dependent on parents. Children don’t have autonomy, especially financial and emotional autonomy. They are even dependent physically. 

So how can you let your child know they are free to express their thoughts and feelings honestly? That they are loved no matter what? And do you really mean it?  

As long as the parent’s mindset is like, “I want you to be honest, my child, but if you tell me you are the one who broke my favorite vase, I will be upset and won’t talk to you for the rest of the day.” (manipulation and lack of emotional autonomy), they are setting up their child to be dishonest, not honest. And mandatory honesty is not true honesty.  

I know this is difficult. Parents are humans, too, still in their development stage, with all kinds of shortcomings. I just thought being aware of this dilemma may be helpful.  

Further, I think the key in this dilemma is to realize that your child is not your possession at all. Your child came from the spiritual world to play the role of your child, just as you came to this world to play a certain role. You are only serving them in their growth in this world. (Some people call this, “Children are from God.”)  

Honesty to oneself before honesty to others

Honesty starts within. Before we express ourselves honestly, we need to be aware of what we are thinking and feeling. Really. So often, we don’t examine our honest thoughts and feelings and prematurely adopt socially accepted ideas.  

For instance, many people have problem facing their desires, whether the desire is about luxury cars, sex, or the desire to quit the current cushy job to do something they really like to do. If you resonate with this statement, you are actually better off than most. People who have serious problem being honest to themselves are in denial. They may get upset at people who honestly admits such desires and actively accuse them.  

Monogamy and honesty

It would be dishonest by omission if I skip the issue of fidelity in this article about honesty. So here is my personal opinion. 

I quit subscribing to the idea of monogamy recently because I see inherent issue of honesty in it. In monogamous relationship, each partner expects the other to be faithful. This set expectation — lack of freedom — is ground for dishonesty. If I meet another attractive man while in monogamous relationship, my choices are:

I lie to myself and decide I felt nothing to keep my self image of a “good” faithful person. 
I be honest with myself but choose to take no action, to stay faithful to my partner.
I be honest with myself but lie to my partner to keep his dream of fidelity, leading myself to cheat. 

I be honest with myself and to my partner, leading to potential breakup.  
I may have no problem choosing #2, but I’m not sure if expecting my partner to always choose #2 is a healthy reasonable expectation. 

And I value honesty more than security and steadiness of relationship. I’d rather have an honest lover than dishonest / confused one who makes love only to me.  

If I feel insecure when I hear him talk about other women (or men, for that matter), that is my issue, not his, not ours. I own my feelings. Same with differences in values and opinions. He may have different opinions than mine, and that is fine with me. I know that doesn’t undermine the worth of my opinion.  

I don’t want to lock up someone — anyone. I don’t think I can justify doing so in the name of love. And I don’t like to be locked up, either.

Does this mean I’m against monogamous relationship? No. If two individuals are happy together, that is wonderful — let’s celebrate! It’s when such condition is enforced, either by manipulation or by social brain washing, that I have a with. (A common way of social brain washing is the promotion of soulmate.) 

Can you let your partner be who he or she is? Can you let them express themselves freely? Can you honestly say what is on your mind?  

You are free

In conclusion, I’d like you to realize you are already free. Whether you have achieved financial, emotional, and mental autonomy or not, and whether you feel free or not, you are free. It is yet another layer of illusion to believe you are not.  

Free will is the primary right and responsibility in this universe. You can even choose not to feel free, to believe you are enslaved, and you are still accepted as you are. Free will is such an essential part of life that God even allows us to go against the Light, to become darkworkers.  

I hope this deep sense of acceptance and freedom helps you build your life based on honesty and truth.