Honesty - A Fading But So Important Part Of Humanity

Honesty,

An unclear but so important part of humanity.

We live in a confusing world where honesty is mentioned by all and practiced by some.

In general we can say that honesty becomes unclear.

Before we can discover if something or someone is honest,

We need to take our time to study the topic,

Check the resources and double check what has been said.

Even the media play a big,

Dark role in this.

For now let us search for what is honesty.

Honesty,

When we search in the dictionary,

Can only be described by synonyms and not by a clear statement or definition.

That is very interesting as even the dictionaries cannot exactly tell what is the meaning or content of honesty.

Did you know that science has no real meaning for honesty?

It seems we all should know what is the meaning,

The content and the value by heart,

Without even getting a definition.

We are supposed to be honest but no one can tell us what it is and how we have to be honest.

In all religions,

Spiritual preachings and other messages,

It is expected that we know how to be honest.

More interesting is that honesty is completely based on personal feelings.

From this we can scientifically say that honesty is a word without exact meaning and an open individual interpretation and by that not existing as a true fact.

The first question in this lecture I have for you,

What does honesty mean for you?

Try to describe the word and its meaning for you as a person,

For you and your family,

For you and society.

Do not make a very deep research,

Keep it simple and easy.

Be surprised.

Now we know that honesty is an expectation with a clear individual character,

We can understand that people are no longer honest.

They lost the meaning of the word and because of their bringing up in a world where the meaning is fading,

They are not able to have the mental duty and responsibility to be honest.

The real problem of what we must call honesty is that nobody exactly knows what it is.

Now I give some time to think,

Try to get the meaning of what I just told you.

How can we solve that problem?

After you have realized there is no such thing as real honesty,

We must move on and create a clear definition of honesty for ourselves.

We need to have a clear picture in our life to explain why me and you think that somebody is honest or not.

Definitions,

Even when they are personal,

Are needed to keep a clear vision on the world.

True honesty is living by your own rules and values.

The problem in life starts when these rules and values bounce with ease of other people.

Maybe even oppose them.

This is where we have to adjust or border our own honesty.

By adjusting our personal honesty it becomes cloudy and we lose the true sense of the meaning.

This happens when we are still in childhood.

While growing up we get a lot of conflicting messages of what others call honesty.

Everybody is talking from their own point of view.

As we have seen in an already polluted and unclear form.

All this information comes into your head and is mixing with each other.

The reality of honesty becomes less clear and we need to find our personal ways to define what we call honesty.

To do this we need our principles.

If you want to know more about principles you listen to my lecture on that topic.

You define honesty with your principles in mind.

Let me start by giving you some examples to make it more clear.

Sample 1.

Imagine you are growing up in a poor family with little to eat and hard working but bad earning parents.

You live in a poor neighborhood with many families in the same situations.

Next door is a family who always has food on the table.

While you have to go hungry to bed.

They seem to find a way to get food all the time even they have no money.

You want to know how they do it.

One day you decide to follow the father of the family and you see he is stealing the food from a supermarket.

In the evening you come home and tell your parents what you saw.

They call him a bad man and a criminal.

The next day you visit the family as the son is your friend.

You ask the man frankly why he is stealing,

As your father called it,

The food from the supermarket.

In your honesty you also tell him that your father thinks that he is a bad as your father has to work hard to make the money to buy the food.

The father looks at you and is shocked that you discover he is stealing.

He is calling you a liar and he kicks you out of the house.

Now you are a liar for this man while you are telling the truth.

Confused of this message you go home and tell your father what happened.

Your father gets also very angry with you as you have been telling the truth to the neighbour.

And of what your father told you too.

Now two people are angry with you because of telling the truth or being honest.

The lesson of this story is that telling the truth,

Being honest,

Can upset people and you get punished for it.

Because nobody likes to be punished you stop telling the truth.

As you know honesty can bring you a lot of trouble.

Here honesty got seriously damaged.

Sample two.

You are in love with a beautiful girl.

At least she is beautiful to you.

One of your friends thinks that she is not beautiful at all and he tells you frankly without the intention to insult or hurt you.

The girl is not his taste.

Telling you this story makes you angry and you hit your friend.

Maybe your friendship ends there.

After some time you discover that your girlfriend has more than only you.

As an honest person you ask her why she is dating more men and not only you because you do not like to share her.

The girl is honest and tells you that she wants to enjoy the company of more men in different situations.

As you are not enough for her.

Again you get angry and upset.

This time you call her many names and suddenly you think she is ugly.

Her appearance has run from physically beautiful to an ugly person.

Just because she was honest to you.

From this sample it is clear that the truth and honesty looks the same but are far apart.

Both are dependent on the observer and the interpretation of the individual mind.

In both cases the truth and honesty are not appreciated and badly judged by the persons involved.

How can you create a clear vision of personal honesty?

In the beginning of this lecture I already mentioned the need of having your personal principles.

These are a strong hook to hang on your honesty.

But true honesty needs more than only your personal principles.

Honesty depends on where you stay.

Your environment has a conception of honesty and this all is in unwritten rules.

Religion has a great influence on the consideration of what is honest and what is not.

Some religions consider the fact of having more than one wife normal.

While others consider it adultery or cheating.

To me it is an interesting fact that we do not have any religion or community where it is normal that a woman has more than one man.

Do you consider this honest?

One thing must be clear.

Honesty is only useful and applicable between people and most of all in some kind of relationship.

No matter what kind of relationship.

Honesty becomes valuable and useful when two or more people come together for some reason and have to come to an agreement,

Appointment or other form of cooperation.

Here we come to the essence of honesty.

It is more or less an agreement between individuals whenever it is a group or in a direct connection with each other.

Honesty serves the purpose to make smoother cooperation possible.

In fact your honesty must suit the person you are connected with.

On a close but also on a distance.

There must be understanding what is considered honest between each other.

In general spoken,

If you go to a pair club and your partner goes around with another person and you do the same it is not considered adultery but a common behaviour because of the place and the people there.

There is an understanding that this is the norm and considered honest.

Finally it is time for you to set personal rules for what you consider honesty of yourself and what you expect of others.

Take some time to consider and start writing down.

After one week you look again in your writings and add and rewrite.

Do this every two or three weeks for a year or so.

You will discover that you are not consistent at many topics but you also will discover some true core values of yourself which are fundamental to your true and honesty system.

Then we now come to the questions and answers.

I find some questions for you that are interesting.

Question one.

My partner and me have a different value system in our relationship.

I prefer to spend my time with my partner and share as much as possible.

My partner on the other hand wants space to do things with other people,

Go alone on the holiday,

Have personal friends and needs private space and time.

I suspect that this is dishonest and not loyal to me.

Answer.

If you do not have the same value system but you are in love with that partner it is your responsibility to talk about it.

Personal value system must suit in many ways to make a relationship work.

It is very possible to have opposing characters but the value system must have many similarities.

If the similarities are not existing it is better to stop and go separate ways.

Do not adjust yours or expect this from your partner.

That only leads to failure and disaster.

If you want to know more about loyalty check my topic on that.

You will see that loyalty is from a totally different level.

Question two.

My partner is always busy to find holes in regulations of the government and try to use them in his benefit.

I have the feeling this is dishonest.

Answer two.

Oh hey,

Your partner must be Dutch.

Our national game is to find holes in the tax and other regulations to make benefit of it.

Each person has a specific value system and your partner is making use of official rules and regulations and not cheating or stealing anything.

Making use of a situation without harming others is considered honest in most societies.

It becomes a different story when you break the rules to get a benefit.

Question three.

I have some things to hide from my partner.

It's from my past.

If they know these things the relationship will stop.

Is it honest that I don't tell it?

Answer three.

Complicated,

Complicated.

Yes and no.

It all depends on your value system and if these events do not bother you to be in a good relationship with your partner.

The problem with hiding things is risky.

They come out which brings you in a very vulnerable position.

Honesty is also satisfaction.

If your partner is satisfied with you and the way how you are happy with him now and the relationship is good.

So maybe it's not interesting and it's fine to hide it.

But if your partner is interested researching your past and knowing he will not accept what you did it is better to be open and clear.

And see the reaction.

If the love is honest the past will be forgiven but not forgotten.

Question four.

I steal and cheat for a living.

That is my income and I'm perfectly alright with it.

To be honest it is a lot at a level.

Is that alright?

And so forth.

Your actions and personality are completely dishonest to the mainstream people and surely for the victims.

Also the juridical system will consider you dishonest and judge you based on that.

For the society you are a bad person which also makes you a dishonest person.

But to some people you know and who know you or do not know at all as its situation is like in number three.

You can be honest person when they have the same values as you.

Question five.

I live in a community where we all share partners and everybody did agree with it.

When they enter the community we feel that we are all honest to each other.

And so forth.

When people share the same values and there is an open communication about it and a mutual agreement without force or pressure it is honest and alright.

The judgment of the outside world does not make you good or bad.

It only reflects their opinion and their values.

This is the end of this lecture about honesty.

My name is Arnoud van de Vere.

I'm from the Netherlands.

If you would like to know more please check me on my website or on the internet.

Thank you for listening and I hope you follow more of my lectures.