Honesty Matters
As you climb the pyramid the needs, your need for self fulfillment tends to force you to look at more refined ways of preserving your self-respect. For instance, as you become financially secure, your thoughts move from worrying about the next paycheck, to less pressing concerns, such as what tennis racket you are going to buy this weekend. With this rise in the quality of living comes a corresponding responsibility to broaden your skill-set and increase your inner harmony with yourself and your surroundings.
One way to improve yourself in this matter is to focus on your honesty level. When life is harder, it can actually be more practical to be dishonest about certain things. For instance, if money is tight, sometimes it is necessary for some people to think they can skip paying the ticket to travel on the train to work some mornings. Whilst this is wrong, you can understand that some people have more need to save that money for food. Yet, when money is not a problem, it is often the case that these same people still try to cheat the system and continue not paying their way in society. This level of dishonesty is bad for them and as they rise into their new social class, they will be labelled in a negative light by their peers once they find out about their dishonest ways. Honesty is necessary for self-respect and self-love. Hard times force some people to abandon their self-respect in order to survive, but it is still wrong. However, to be fair, honesty seems to be a value that is easier for those whose life is less harse.
With regards to relationships, honesty is critical to trust. If a partner is found to be lying about small things, then the natural conclusion is that the partner will most definitively lie about big things (such as cheating). This can (and does) breed an atmosphere of distrust in a relationship. Without trust, a relationship is very severely limited in how far it can proceed. People in a relationship have to remember that trust is hard to earn and easily lost, so even one or two moments of dishonesty can be enough to ruin the trust in a relationship for a long time. If you find that your past, i.e. your ‘hard’ life, encouraged you to be dishonest, then ask yourself, as an adult, is this stil the case; are you still unable to lead a life of honesty. By trying to incorporate truthfulness and honesty into your life and being intolerant of any form of dishonesty and lying in your own behaviour, you are effectively telling the world that you are climbing the pyramid of needs and are existing on a higher plain of self-actualisation and maturity than your peers. This makes you a more valuable person in most peoples’ opinion and one which other emotionally-rich people will endeavour to become acquainted with. Even more importantly, it tells your prospective partner that you have risen above your animalistic/self-centred instincts and have goals and standards which make you a very attractive person… someone who will rise to the challenges imposed in life and who will always aim for the right path to follow. This attitude you foster will encourage trustfulness in your partner, which in turn will lead to a feeling of security. If you are dishonest, you stand every chance of making your partner feel insecure and this may manifest itself in relationship disharmony. If you are totally and consistently honest, you have acquired one of the cornerstone skills of a truly successful relationship and you will reap the rewards for your mature attitude.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am
Its had to know where to start when searching for an honest partner. But I agree with alot of what the blog says. Good sound advice.