Honesty Is The Best Policy

In this session we contemplate the saying, 'Honesty is the best policy', using it to discuss the complex nature of interpersonal connections, the need for consistency, the concept of inner and outer masking, and the different roles we fall into in life.

This track is taken from my course, ‘Live Your Most Fulfilling Life’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable and close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

In a moment I'm going to share with you a proverb,

Aphorism,

Idiom or saying for you to contemplate and I invite you to do so as deeply as possible.

To look beyond your initial default reaction to it and to consider it from all sides,

To be open to it guiding you,

Encouraging you and informing you of potential knowledge,

Insights and wisdom that may be lying just below the surface.

Our goal with each of these daily contemplations is to use the session to acquire a deeper understanding of ourselves,

The world and our place within it.

So let's take another deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and consider the following.

Honesty is the best policy.

Honesty is the best policy.

So this idea honesty is the best policy is something that I try to live by both for myself internally in my sort of inner responses to who and what I am as well as externally to the world both in person and digitally,

Professionally.

And there's a few reasons for this.

The first one is an aspect of pretending or masking.

We are all shaped by our environment and our genetics,

By our upbringings and who and what we are is dependent on the context upon which we find ourselves.

If I'm parenting,

If I'm parenting,

I am parent Zach.

If I am managing a business,

I am manager Zach.

If I'm driving and I get pulled over,

I'm,

Oh my god,

I'm getting pulled over by the cops Zach,

Right?

There's an emergency,

I'm in an emergency.

Social,

Sports,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

You know,

The romantic version of you.

When I'm around my parents,

I'm child me.

The point is,

Is that all of these versions of me are a little bit different because the context upon which they find themselves in forces me to present a little bit of a different face to the world.

I'm not going to act the way I act in one context versus the other because it doesn't quite work.

That version of me is not optimally primed,

Optimally available to respond to the situation that it finds itself in.

However,

There is a through cord,

An underlying sort of me-ness that permeates all of those different aspects of myself,

Including the aspect of me when I'm alone.

And what I find is,

Is that the closer I can be to that level of self,

Of me,

The less effort it takes.

If,

On the other hand,

I find myself in a situation where I have to act,

Where I have to put on a show,

Where I have to mask,

The more energy it takes for me to maintain that mask.

The further away I am from my truth,

The harder it is to keep going.

And that's true for a lot of us.

We struggle to be someone that we're not.

This disingenuineness weighs on our soul.

If you've ever worked in retail and you're forced to be bubbly or happy all the time with clients,

With customers,

In response to high stress,

Dysregulating environments,

Customers,

The whole deal,

You've got to put on a smile,

You've got to be happy.

By the end of your shift,

You're emotionally drained.

Whereas if you have the pleasure of working a job where you don't have to put that on,

You're still tired by the end of the day,

But it's not as overwhelming.

It's not as terrible for you.

The reason I'm saying all of this is that if you can live a life of honesty,

There's less effort.

Not in a lazy way,

But in a more congruous way.

The experience of most people at school is one where they've had to tweak aspects of themselves to fit in with the norm,

With the group.

And we continue that into our work and adult lives.

We twist and change ourselves.

And we find ourselves doing activities that aren't really us.

We did it because everyone was doing it.

But are we truly content?

Are we truly happy?

Maybe,

But most likely not.

Honesty is the best policy.

If you find yourself in a situation that you've just gone along with,

It's like you wake up and you're like,

What am I doing this for?

That's a burst of honesty from your intuition,

From your soul,

From a deeper aspect of yourself that's saying,

Hey,

This isn't right.

Let's make some changes.

You make those changes and you'll start heading towards a life that you actually like,

Rather than just going through the motions.

There's something to consider.

But this honesty is the best policy applies to friendships,

To relationships,

To business.

Once again,

If you're honest,

If you just express,

If you're able to convey who and what you are,

You don't have to lie.

You don't have to put on a show.

And if you don't have to lie or put on a show,

You can just be you in that moment.

You don't have to spend mental capacity remembering,

How do I treat this person?

What did I say to that person?

It takes effort to be deceitful and ongoing continual effort to maintain that front.

To lie to someone,

You have to remember the lie,

Who you lied to and who knows the truth.

And it's a whole bunch of mental stuff that just doesn't quite work.

But if you're just honest,

If you can just be truthful,

You just have to remember what happened and how you feel.

And there's a deeper aspect to this as well.

It's like,

Yeah,

You might change your feelings.

Cool.

You're open and honest about that.

This is my truth.

This is how I'm feeling.

I used to feel like that.

Now I feel like this.

If you get known in your personal relationships,

In business as an honest operator,

People trust you.

It's easy to see people getting hoodwinked in the short term,

But over the long term,

Reputation matters.

Over the long term,

People start to see that you're a straight talker,

That you speak your mind,

That you are truthful to yourself and others,

So they know where they stand.

I find it best to communicate clearly,

To speak truth,

And then also to ask,

To say,

Hey,

Like,

What do you mean by that?

Just for clarity.

Honesty is the best policy,

Right?

Ambiguity and gameplay causes animosity and confusion and wastes a whole bunch of effort that does need to be wasted.

But there's a significant ego cut that needs to come the more honest you are,

Particularly if you're honest to yourself and you're expressing that honesty,

That truth.

It's like,

Hey,

I just don't want to do this thing.

Then you start having to defend yourself.

Why don't you want to do it?

I just don't like it.

What do you mean you don't like it?

These sort of talks.

Oh,

Hey,

I don't want to do this thing.

Why?

Because that's not in line with my overarching highest goals.

That's not in line with my truth.

Those are some tough questions,

Tough answers.

Oh,

I don't want to do this thing.

Why?

Because it actually scares me.

Because I'm not the sort of person that can do that thing.

Now we're getting into some shadow work here.

You look deep enough into yourself,

If you speak enough truth,

If you search for honesty in yourself,

You will see that some things you are amazing at,

Other things you are.

Let's just be kind to ourselves and say,

Needing some work.

But if you discover those parts of yourself,

You can be confronting and you want to pull back and you want to lie to yourself.

It's like,

No,

I'm strong,

I'm great,

I'm this,

I'm that.

And you live in that lie,

You live in that falsity and you continue to struggle,

Blaming others for the problems that you have internally.

Whereas the honest response would be going,

Yeah,

I struggle with that.

I can either accept that struggle,

Or I can take steps to address it,

Or ideally both.

Honesty is the best policy.

And I guess the final aspect of this is,

It's always better to deal with people who are honest.

I want to know how someone feels about me.

I don't want to be guessing.

I want to know when people are wanting something,

Know when people are wanting something from me.

Nothing's worse than a sales call that you don't realize you're in until you're halfway through and you're like,

Oh,

This person's trying to sell me something.

It just causes this conflict and this issue.

If someone is flirting with me,

I want to know.

I'm not against it,

Just let me know.

I just want to be clear on what is happening.

Let's not be deceitful.

Let's not play games.

And if everyone could be more like that,

Probably the world would be a bit of a better place.

And yeah,

That's naive.

I get it.

But that idea of,

You know,

Be the change in the world you want to see.

I remember growing up,

The confusion of childhood into adulthood.

It's like everyone's got this mask that they're putting on,

And we're all playing this role in this game.

So wouldn't it be better if we were just honest here?

Just let go and just express our truth.

Yes,

There is naivety there,

But we can find the intersection between the naivety of a child versus the reality of an adult and just speak truth,

Be honest,

Not play those games to ourselves,

Professionally,

Just in the world in general.

Because if it could be a little bit more honest,

We may find that it's the best policy.

Because perhaps honesty is the best policy.

So,

Well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You see an option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

And before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from other students and to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses by restating the contemplation.

In this case,

Honesty is the best policy.

So we all know which one you are referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight.

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

Thank you.

This track is taken from my course,

Live Your Most Fulfilling Life.

It's out now on Insight Timer and is available via my profile.

I invite you to check it out.

See you there.