Truth: Do You Dare?

Writer's Note:  This post concerns an incident from several years in the past, not recent.  I wrote it down to get my thoughts out, saved it, and just ran across it again today and decided it was a worthy topic.

What exactly is truth?  And can we really handle it?  We claim to be truth seekers – at least most of us do, but is truth really what we seek, and what we offer?  Deep thoughts, I know, but a recent conversation with a friend got me pondering the whole issue of the nature of truth.

Actually, to tell the truth (insert ironic snort here), it wasn’t so much a conversation with a friend as it was her telling me some personal things to which I had a very strong reaction and deep concerns that she was heading for some big trouble, and that I did not verbalize.  In other words, I did not speak my true feelings about what she was telling me, and after we hung up, I found myself wondering why it was so hard to just be honest with her.  And I came to the mortifying conclusion that in this particular instance, though it would be easy to say I didn’t tell her the truth in order to spare her feelings, the reality of it was that I didn’t tell her the truth because it benefited me.  I would have risked her backing away, shutting me out, not feeling safe to come to me any more, or even worse, deciding that she did not want us to be close friends any more.  And if that were to happen, I not only would lose her friendship, but I would likely lose some connections with other people that I want to stay connected with for many reasons, because she is closer to them than I am.  So, in pondering this situation, I realized that I actually had very self-centered reasons for not telling the truth.

How often do we opt to tell only part of the truth, or some version of the truth, or the sanitized truth, or even an out and out lie, for reasons that are less than altruistic?  I like to believe, and often say, that I am an open book and that what you see is what you get.  But the truth (there’s that word again) is that there is probably no one in my life, not even my husband, who knows everything about me.  Sure he knows a lot, but there are many things I have never told him and probably never will.  Things from the past, to be sure, but still . . .  And among my friends, I can count on one hand, actually maybe half a hand, the ones with whom I’m even mostly transparent and honest.  I have a tendency to only have a very small number of close friends at a time, and even those relationships can be difficult for me to take beyond a certain level. 

How often we say the thing we think someone wants to hear, rather than our real opinion on the matter.  I am literally physically unable to have a confrontation with someone other than my closest family members, and so when an issue arises with a friend where some hard things need to be said, they go unspoken.

 

This particular character flaw has caused me no end of internal grief, as you know if you read this blog or know me, that I am a self-confessed people pleaser. And yet, when you have a deep need to say something hard but true, and you just cannot bring yourself to do it, you are the one that ends up suffering and making yourself miserable and wondering.  Wondering what if I told the truth?  What if they don't like what I have to say?  What if they don't . . . love me anymore? 

 

There, that's the crux of it really.  What if they don't love me anymore.  Because that would be the worst thing.  Except would it, really?  If someone stops loving me because I say something to them that they don't like or don't want to hear, is that a love worth being UNtruthful to maintain? 

 

I don't have a wise and sage answer, just the questions.  Always the questions.  But I'd love to learn to be more truthful, and I am working on it.  And it's hard and reeeeeealllly uncomfortable.  Because sometimes when the truth hurts, it hurts the teller as well as the hearer.