Honesty

Honesty is the best policy.

Can you believe we are already into the 9th month of 2020, where has this year gone? Looking in a dictionary (my old ancient school dictionary; that I had when I was at High School all those years ago), the definition of honesty is being fair and righteous in speech and act, and not lying, cheating or stealing, being sincere, showing righteous of act or feeling.

I would say that most people would concur that people being honest with them is a good thing, and yes, we may be honest with others, however, are we fully honest with ourselves?

Honesty, I believe, is intricately connected to truth, however, does the word ‘truth’, and the word ‘honest’, mean the same thing? Often in business, we hear things like “John is an honest builder and does a good job; he says what he does and gets the job done”.

The same situation arises with the truth and truthfulness. It’s interesting in court when you are called to give evidence, lawfully you must swear with your hand on the Bible, “I will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Today I think some of us have lost honesty and truth. I think over the last few months, with COVID, what is truth and honesty and what is made up has become confused. I think we are slowly becoming a society that doesn’t believe what we are told anymore in the media.

In sport they now do drug testing due to successful sportspeople known to be taking enhancing drugs in the past, and when tested finding it positive. They are not being honest and truthful with themselves. There are also ‘corrupt people’ who say that if you want to win at a sport you can do these things. I myself am a keen swimmer, and in my younger days, I got selected to swim for the county. To me taking part was more important than winning. I remember when I was 11, swimming 4 lengths of the old pool in Bromsgrove, and winning the race. Unfortunately, my father referee did the right thing and disqualified me, as I swam part breaststroke. If I had not been disqualified, I would not have honestly won the gold medal.

Self-imposed honesty with one’s self is important and may mean that you don’t get the victory. Be honest and truthful with yourself, are there areas of your life and business that do need looking at? Be honest with yourself; do not be afraid to ask for help.

Are you honestly expecting too much from yourself?

Putting yourself under too much pressure, that was one of my biggest problems, and occasionally if I am honest with myself, I still do it; forgetting how important I am.

Have you lied about something?

Ask yourself, should you go and apologise and see if there is something that can be done to make up the damage that the lie could have caused.

If you are a sports person do you make a habit of cheating at sport and giving it a fancy name and saying others do it so why should it matter?

Why not make a firm decision with yourself to be honest and not do it?

Let us look at the honest tradesman who gives value for money; he the one who gets a good reputation and is kept busy.

The shop keeper who sells good quality products and providing an honest and reliable service to the community is guaranteed to do more business, even if it is more expensive than the less trustworthy rival.

When bringing up your children you expect them to tell the truth. It can be sad seeing a child been boxed into a corner by dishonesty, especially when he/she has been taught it is wrong.

I remember being told a story when I was doing an Institute of Welfare Officers Diploma Course. One of the ladies on the course said that something had bothered her when we had been discussing honesty. She went to a posh private school at the age of 13 and she stole a cigarette lighter off the mantelpiece of the headmaster’s study. At the time there were 6 girls in his study. As far as she knew there was no reason why she should be a suspect. She did not even have a reason to have the lighter as she did not even smoke. That day each of the girls was called to be questioned separately, and every one of them firmly denied they had the lighter, let alone seen it. She recalls that the lighter did seem to get heavier in her blazer pocket. She said later that day, when no one was looking, with a thumping heart, when the coast was clear, she slipped back into the office and returned the lighter. Still to this day she does not know if she was seen or not. She kept lying to the headmaster, and she does wonder whether he did suspect her, and knew very well she was responsible.

After leaving school this did play on her mind and her conscience got the better of her. She said that she felt she could not pluck up the courage and go and see the headmaster face to face and confess she stole his lighter. She told me what she did decide to do was write him a letter to confess it all.

We may be honest with others, however, are we honest with ourselves?

Do we treat ourselves honestly?

If you’re putting rubbish into your body, do you honestly expect to feel great?

If you put good things into your body, you should honestly expect to feel on top of the world.

Remember: ‘GIGO’ – Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Ask yourself honestly, what kind of fuel are you feeding your amazing body, which is an amazing miraculous human machine?

Remember that your body is the only one that you have got!

Do you fill your amazing body with smoke? Do you put too much alcohol in the tank? Do you service your body when hungry with junk food? Do you have unprotected sex, due to sexual indulgences or careless physical relationships? Do you take enough time to recharge your batteries?

Remember you can not run on empty, look after yourself, as you are the most important person.

These are the questions you can ask about your physical life, and be honest with yourself! If you can’t be honest with yourself, then how do you expect others to be honest with you.

So remember, you can not expect others to be honest with you if you are not honest with them. You can not teach people the value of honesty unless they can learn from your examples. Being honest is dealing with every aspect of building a reliable and trustworthy reputation, and having these qualities is a noticeably big step on the ladder of success.

Thanks for reading! Until next months October blog on Information.