Growing up, I have been taught that Yes, honesty costs, and No, I can’t afford it.
my cultural training: Someone will surely get hurt! I get shamed. blamed. The honest person gets judged negatively, punished, disowned from their tribe, friends, community, or the place they belong! Honesty is taught to be dangerous, unsafe, unreal, unnecessary, idealistic, not realistic, selfish, impossible, unattainable. Ironically, honesty is something we all want desperately from others but when it comes to ourselves expressing honestly, well…its not for us. We have many reasons we can’t be honest. In some instances, people even believe that keeping information, or not sharing pertinent information gives them more power over the ones who don’t have the information.Therefore, dishonesty sometimes becomes a power tool/weapon to control a situation.
Thinking about all these subliminal messages that I have been taught about honesty, I have learned also about the global shared mental obstacles against honesty anywhere I go. I realize there is no one person responsible for this ridiculously misleading paradigm. It is widespread and it is a global like an infectious disease.
If we want to develop more honesty, we need to learn about empathy and trust. Empathy and trust are the key that opens the door to the locked in honesty. Honesty without empathy and trust costs a great deal, well it does, sorry! That IS the problem! The reason we believe that we cannot possibly afford to be honest is because there is no empathy greeting our honesty. We don’t trust our honesty to be safe. But why wait for the world to give us empathy and safety. Perhaps we need to give ourselves plenty of empathy first and then dare to ask for empathy from others. Perhaps we can entertain this new way of being a bit more each day and spread it one bit at time. Perhaps we also can give empathy to our family, friends, and children and encourage them to express their honesty. To change this insane paradigm we can start changing it in ourselves.
Honestly nothing else is worth your time or mine.
Progressive T.L.C. 
So true, my friend, so true. I have lost so many relationships over the years due to my need to be honest. Yes, it was painful, but I have grown to realize that my values are the key to choosing honesty and anyone who doesn’t accept and support that has no place in my life. They were doing me a favor by removing themselves and opening up the road to freedom.
Isn’t that sometimes the consequence? I am hoping to reach a point where I can demonstrate that my honesty is actually a gesture of respect to them. If I am dishonest to them, I am not valuing or respecting their choices. Isn’t it true that my honesty sets them free to do what’s best for them as well? How awesome is that?
Very awesome! And, yes, I do believe that honesty = respect. I hope you will always be honest with me. And I hope others learn to receive honesty as a gift.