Understanding Honesty

Honesty, as is usually taught at an early age, is the best policy. It is a virtue. It strengths character and relationships, demonstrates integrity, and maintains a connection with a person’s Creator. But negotiating life amid a fallen society and the need to succeed often dictates a different path. Honesty may be synonymous with truth, but absolute truth is sometimes more difficult to define than may at first be apparent.

“Many people simply view honesty as the act of telling the truth, but the concept is deeper and more complex than that,” according to the “Honesty” article in Good Therapy (Internet, April 28, 2017). “The concept of truth is largely a subjective one. What is true for one person may not necessarily be true for another. Therefore, at times it may be hard to speak the truth, as a person’s understanding of (it) is largely influenced by his own experiences, perspectives, and biases.”

If, for example, an aspiring artist shows his first painting to a friend and elicits his opinion, that friend would be less than honest if he said it was good when, in fact, he finds it horrible. Since he most likely cares about the person, he may wish to spare his feelings and encourage him with “white lies,” such as, “It’s pretty good for a first painting” or “it shows promise.”

Is this a lie, a deception, or an omission? If, furthermore, the friend is not an artist himself, withholding his true opinion may be less than honest. But, since it is only an opinion, how, without his own expertise and experience in the field, can that opinion be considered absolute truth about the quality of the painting?

There are often situations, however, when honesty or the lack of it are indisputable. If a person lists a degree earned at Harvard on his resume when, in fact, he only graduated from a local community college, it is a lie.

If honesty is, indeed, the best policy, why do so many deviate from it? The answer can be subdivided into the four broad categories of “gain,” “avoid,” “create an image or impression on others,” and “create an image to self.”

In the first case, a person may lie to “gain,” whether it be an advantage, a competitive edge, a new job, a higher position, a salary increase, or a discount, among numerous other things. In the instance of the false resume listing, he may be hired by a more prestigious, better-paying company.

In the second category, “avoid,” he may seek to avoid punishment, hurt (his own or others), a loss, adversity, negativity, harm, shame, guilt, embarrassment, reaction, or response. If a person lies to a police officer, for example, he may avoid receiving a ticket for some infraction.

In the third, he may lie or be deceptive to create a better “impression or image to others,” elevating their view of him and perhaps placing him on a more equal level with them. Examples of this motivation include lying about his education, employment, salary, credentials, residence, or other life accomplishments.

Finally, being less than honest to himself to maintain a better self-image may result from an inferior one. In this case, he is actually lying to himself.

“In order to be a virtuous person, it is not enough just to act well,” advises Christian B. Miller in his article, “The Virtue of Honesty Requires More than Just Telling the Truth (Psyche, December 13, 2021. “One’s heart behind the action matters too. Honesty is no exception. Telling the truth, even if one is reliable in doing so, won’t be an expression of the virtue of honesty if it is done just to make a good impression on others or to avoid getting punished or to secure rewards in the afterlife.”

Although there may be numerous believed and perceived “benefits” of being less than honest, it can become burdensome.

“Honesty can be beneficial in part because people who tell the truth do not later have to deal with the stress and anxiety that often coincide with lying,” the “Honesty” article in Good Therapy continues. “When people lie, they then have to remember their lies in order to prevent them from being disproven. Other people have to tell additional lies, an act that is likely to result in an increasingly complicated series of (them) that can be difficult to remember and stressful to manage.”

Mark Twain stated it more directly. “When you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” he said.

Truth, like cream, always rises to the surface, and when it does, those who do not use it or only use versions of it, quickly lose trust, respect, reputation, and credibility. So pervasive and pathological can lies become, in fact, that a person may no longer be aware of his chronic use of them.

Honesty is both vital and integral to any type of healing modality, whether it be in traditional therapy or in twelve-step programs. It is here where Shakespeare’s adage of “This, above all, to thine own self be true” can never be more valid.

A person cannot change or improve behaviors, attitudes, and parts of himself he does not first acknowledge so that they can be viewed for what they are, understood, processed, amended or reversed, and ultimately transcended.

“The courage to be honest with ourselves is one quality we can cultivate to help our spiritual growth,” according to Al-Anon’s Courage to Change text (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 1992, p. 175). “…Honesty allows us to look at ourselves, to share our discoveries with God and others, to admit that we need spiritual help in moving forward, and to free ourselves by making amends for past wrongs.”

As with many dwindling behaviors, reversing the tendency to lie and re-embrace honesty requires several steps.

First and foremost, a person must become aware of his use and misuse of this tendency. He must secondly determine his frequency for doing so and any overall patterns he has created. He must determine if it is used more often or more prevalently in certain situations or with certain people as opposed to with others. He needs to examine the adverse effects his past actions have caused, such as hurts or betrayals. And finally, he must tip the scales toward using honesty and away from dishonesty. The former fosters growth and integrity. The latter causes a disconnection from his Creator—or the Source that feeds his soul.

Robert G. Waldvogel has earned the Interdisciplinary Certificate in Behavioral Health for Late Adolescence and the Emerging Adult and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Fundamentals of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment at Adelphi University’s School of Social Work. He has led Twelve-Step support groups on Long Island for the past decade, and created the Adult Child Recovery-through-Writing, and the Strengthening Our Spirituality Programs taught at the Thrive Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Westbury. He is a frequent contributor to Wisdom Magazine.