Define: Honesty

Honesty had never been a word I cared for, and yet I needed it to get through each day. Its presence never excited me, but its absence always upset me. In fact, it is well known that many people feel this way. For some, such "truthfulness" and "sincerity" is the nectar of the gods. Still, many people remain confused as to what defines honesty. They are held under the impression that honesty is to be truthful and demonstrate integrity. Honesty, in my humble opinion, is to remove one from reality and trap them in a world of lies. People who are honest free others from their problems by telling them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. This can be about as sweet on the ears as the shriek of a banshee, and as wanted as a bad itch. For some, such a false reality is something they cannot escape; nor do they want to.

Family is one of those things that people feel needs a raft, honesty, to prevent it from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Being married with kids, I guess for some time I too was intoxicated by such an idea. One day I was having a discussion with my wife about a dilemma I was facing at work. I had completed an assignment for my boss and turned it in late. I could feel a meeting brewing like a hot cup of coffee. "Just be honest, honey" said my wife. Be honest? My wife had told me to be honest without understanding what honesty was herself. From what she meant, I supposed I should tell him that I hated that job and hated working for him also. As I searched aimlessly to find any 'chastity' in such an idea, I feared my wife was shooting to make me lose my job. The meeting that occurred with my boss the following day was filled with nothing but honesty. I carefully to him explained that I had been under a lot of stress from my coworkers, and would not slip up again. My little white honesty helped my chances with future employers, and also helped my Friday check come quicker than any lie could. I had gently placed my boss in the utopia everyone dreams of, and to be honest, I don't regret it one bit.

Some weeks after that, I arrived home to find my daughter, Rachel, in tears on the living room sofa. She was wearing a red sweater I had never seen before. I sat down with her and she told me about her day at school, and how she was forced to claim and wear a sweater that didn't even belong to her. She told me that she had pleaded with the teacher, and asked me what she should have done. "Honesty is always the best policy" seemed to slither out of my mouth like a snake out of the brush. I had told this to my daughter without even believing it myself. In fact, I rather my daughter take the sweater without argument, for her "honesty" was not a raft. It would not help me keep my job, and it wouldn't help Rachel sway the mind of an adult. Indeed I much more preferred that Rachel really be "honest." In this instant, I felt a great deal of sympathy for my daughter. Her young mind would be poisoned with a definition of honesty her father could no longer accept. I yearned to tell her the truth about honesty. How it would help her, and how it already helped me. This lead me to believe more and more that honesty as people saw it, in more cases than few, should be avoided altogether.

I had only partially understood the true meaning of honesty until the death of my father. On the day of his funeral, one of his friends came up to me with his condolences. "He was a good man, your father" he said. It struck me like a bolt of lightning from the heavens. The truth was now clearer to me than a drop of blood in a pool of water. This man, whoever he may have been, was honest with me. My father was not the most respectable of people, and yet no one would have said so to my face that day. I was thankful for such honesty, and more than that, I embraced it. Such honesty allowed me, like most people, to escape. Had that man hung me out to dry in the real world, I fear I may not be here today. I never got the chance to thank him, but my gratitude was endless. Finally, I understood honesty like no time before. Better than my mother or any adult could have taught me. Honesty is the glue that holds society together. However, for those who see honesty as rusty staples society must cling to in order to stay bound, they have yet to feel the amazing feeling it brings.

Honesty may very well be the thin barrier that keeps people sane. Nowhere in the world, not under rocks or below bridges, can life survive without honesty. It is like the watering hole on the scorching African savannah. Honesty can cloak any emotion and spread like wildfire. I may never understand why people insist that honesty, as society sees it, can heal any wound. Honesty may very well inflict more wounds than it can ever heal. Telling my wife she does look fat in those jeans, or telling my boss I hate him more than the devil is not two steps forward, but rather two steps back. The dictionary defines honesty as refraining from lying, and being trustworthy. Hog wash. Honesty is appeasing to ones feelings, and letting them down gently rather than dropping them on a bed of coals. As wrong as people are on what they think honesty is, they are all right about one thing. We all need honesty. Honesty is the ecstasy that no one can seem to get enough of. I've realized that I have been walking in a circle with honesty in the center. I needed it under false pretenses, and I still need it. Honesty, in its natural form, is a goddess of wonder that none can shake.