The Journey Within

Honest answers – an endangered species of the human vocabulary. It’s extinction among adults is probably just on the horizon, saved by the fact that human population is growing – more kids, more honest answers, until they grow up. Even kids tell lies.

So why do we find honest answers so difficult to come by? Or do you think you can distinguish between the honest ones and the lies? And why do people start their sentences with “Honestly speaking…”??!!!

The elusive honest answer. It’s close to being the proverbial “free lunch”, i.e. there is no such thing as an honest answer. Why does it visit us so rarely? Why does it restrict its visiting hours to the few seconds? Most of the time, it’s not even conveyed through words, but through the body that is speaking the words, a contradicting set of audio signals versus visual signals.

Somehow, growing up restricts our ability to give an honest answer. There’s probably that one time, where you thought you were being honest to a friend/colleague/family/relative/stranger, and “WHAM”, the backlash hit you so hard that you wouldn’t dare to give an honest answer again, not to that person anyway! So we start building TACT into how we convey messages. And socially, we are more acceptable and even welcomed, if we are TACTFUL.

Or you probably found out lies are a useful evolutionary tool. Look, even as kids we know that. Crying when you know that’s going to get you attention, or that chocolate chip cookie. There are also the white lies whose colour white makes it “ok” to tell them.

Honestly speaking (ha!), no matter how hard you try, honest answers are difficult to come by. And when they do, I’m not even sure we are ready to accept them, let alone listen to them in the first place. So, it’s us that actually block honest answers. We create the wall to fend off honest answers.

So, how do we get honest answers?

We could learn to listen and be more open minded. We could say to ourselves to accept whatever comments that will come our way. We could learn to keep quiet and reflect on the honest answers, when they’re given to us. But if you’re stubborn as I am, the WALL of DEFENCE will be erected just as soon as you hear the words “honestly speaking…”

Sometimes, the best solution is simply getting more answers from different people. The emphasis is on both MORE and DIFFERENT! If someone tells you you’re lazy, you can probably ignore it. If everyone in your family tells you you’re lazy, you probably could still ignore it, because they will have a same mindset, being exposed to your “laziness” when you’re at home. If your girlfriend tells you you’re lazy, now that’s DIFFERENT. If your classmates tell you you’re lazy, that’s “ok”. If your teacher tells you you’re lazy, now that’s DIFFERENT again. If someone in your basketball team tells you you’re lazy, again, a DIFFERENT answer. So you need MORE answers from DIFFERENT group of people. Only then you could get an honest feel of what you can improve on yourself.

It doesn’t really matter if you don’t care about other people’s honest answers. But to grow and improve ourselves, other people’s honest answers are an invaluable source of inspiration. Their answers may not be what you were looking for, but it could trigger other thoughts leading to what you were looking for in the first place!

If you like what you read, you can follow me on RSS, by email, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Related posts:

1. How are you? I am ok…
2. Questions
3. Live the questions, now
4. Work hard or work smart?
5. I’m so full of myself