The Simple Truth

I was brought up by parents who taught me to “always tell the truth”. Problem is they never told me how hard that was going to be! Why is it so hard to be completely honest at all times?

It starts when we’re small children. I remember being 6 years old and early one Saturday morning, when no one else was up, I found some matches on the kitchen table. Even though my parents told me not to play with matches I took them outside and started lighting them. The smoke smelled good and it was fun to make fire, but then my Dad came around the corner and I dropped the matchbook. He immediately asked, “Were you playing with matches?” Of course my response was, “No, Daddy I wasn’t doing anything.” He looked at the smoke billowing around me, the matchbook on the ground and the goofy look on my face and fortunately took pity on me. He sat me down and gave me a strict lecture on two subjects, 1) don’t ever play with matches and 2) don’t ever lie again. He concluded with the promise of a severe spanking if either one ever happened again. Since my Dad was the most honest man I knew, I knew he would keep his promise.
 

The plain truth is…we don’t like the truth because the truth makes us squirm. Honesty is just not going to work for us in a lot of situations. We want our bosses to like us, so we flatter them. We want people to admire us, so we exaggerate and call it stretching the truth. We want people to respect us so we live in houses we can’t afford and buy furniture with credit cards that we can’t pay off. However, truth is never gray…it only comes in black or white. It’s either the truth or it’s not.
 

I appreciate what my parents taught me and I won’t ever forget the lessons (and the spanking) my Dad promised me. In fact, last Saturday I had a funny reminder. I was playing golf and enjoying a cigar when I had trouble on a tough par five. I was trying to reach the green in two when I landed in a sand trap. Unfortunately a previous golfer failed to rake the sand and my ball was half buried in a deep footprint. My sand shot sailed way over the green and I ended up with a double bogey. As I went to write down a 7 on my card, I thought about putting down a 6 instead (due to the bogus footprint), but as that thought crossed my mind I accidentally dropped my cigar on my leg and burned myself. Instantly I was reminded of my Dad, matches, promises and honesty! I wrote down a 7.  
 

Here’s an interesting and potentially defining challenge for you. What if the next time you are tempted to tell a lie you make the effort to stop for a moment and think about three things 1) Is it really necessary to lie 2) How will it affect the person I lie to 3) How much better will I feel about myself if I tell the truth! Remember the only thing that will probably happen if you lie is that you’ll get burned!

 

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

~ Oscar Wilde