Candid Honesty

You know you are in trouble when someone says, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”  To my memory, there have only been a few times when I got in serious trouble.  In consequence, those few times stick out in my memory as some of the best life lessons I have ever learned.

Back in high school, I was bending the truth to the point that I didn’t even realize I was lying.  I mostly lied to my parents, but the worst part was that I was lying to myself.  I was so wrapped up in my embellishments that they became my identity.  Finally, and thankfully, my parents caught on.  They were not mad; they were just disappointed.  It was one of those few times I got in serious trouble, and it forever changed the trajectory of my life.

From that point forward, I have made it a point to be truthful in everything I have said, and will say to my parents.  However, there were still areas in my life where I was embellishing things to the people around me.  Even if I didn’t know it at the time, this was a core part of my identity.  Now that I was telling the truth to my parents, this truth directly conflicted with the embellishments I so frequently boasted, and I began to recognize them.

The more I recognized this conflict, the faster I changed to a more truthful lifestyle.  Though I went through much turmoil in my personal relationships to seek forgiveness, I got to a point where I no longer told lies.  The momentum I built over the course of two years in living a more truthful lifestyle continued beyond just telling the truth.

The peak of my honesty ensued when I took a trip to Greece in May of 2015 with about twenty classmates.  The first few days of the trip were a bit rocky.  I said things that caught people off guard because it was so rare for them to hear such candid truth.  It was one of the first times in my life where I let my true colors shine.  Since I felt like I was on vacation, I had no worries about anything in the world.  Consequently, I felt like I did not have to think about what I said.  If I thought it, I said it.  Within a few days, people warmed up to me and appreciated my honesty because it was refreshing.

Now, my friends would describe me as a brutally honest individual.  I have learned to hold my tongue in some situations, but for the most part, I say what’s on my mind.  In the past six months, forthcoming honesty has had the most major, positive impact on my life.

I have found that my interpersonal relationships have began to thrive since being more open and honest.  When I am more honest to people, I have found that as a result, they are also more honest with me.  Honesty leads to this authentic communication, and it allows both parties to adjust their behaviors accordingly.  Sometimes, I even find that the reason there may be tension in a relationship is simply because of a lack of communication, or misunderstanding in communication.

Even if you take a leap out of your comfort zone to say something honest that crosses the line, your true friends will forgive you, and your relationships will improve.  When something you say does cross the line, tension should be expected.  What then sets your friends apart from the rest of people is what happens next: communication. Friends will communicate with you, others will push you away and write you off as a jerk.  Friendships and relationships are each a two way street; both parties need to care and make the effort for it to work, and communication is that first step in building the two way street.

In addition, it’s so much easier to get to the point.  When working with other people, I’ve found that in a more open and honest environment, we get our work done faster and more effectively. However, some people don’t appreciate forthcoming honesty because it catches them off guard.

For example, I have a group project in every class, some of which have multiple projects going on simultaneously.  This semester, I have nine group projects running concurrently.  When picking my group members for each, I did not want to work with classmates who had a track record of being untrustworthy, unreliable, or lazy.  In one instance, a classmate with a notoriously lazy reputation asked if she could join the group another classmate and I were constructing.  When she asked if she could join, my classmate kept giving her an unclear, ‘maybe’ type of answer.  The following is what was going on in my head while my classmate was giving her excuses:

I was quickly getting frustrated because my classmate had explicitly said he did not want to work with this individual about two minutes prior to her approaching us.  I knew that this would be my hardest group project of the semester, so I decided that even if it made her upset, I had to tell her that we didn’t want to work with her.  I even decided to ‘take the blame’ by telling her that I didn’t want to work with her.

After my classmate had finished giving her unclear answers, I stepped in.  I told her that I did not want to work with her.  She gave me an odd look, and proceeded to ask why.  I recalled and explained multiple past projects where she failed to deliver her part of the project.  She responded with an uneasy “okay,” and walked away.

You might be thinking I’m a jerk.  In this particular situation, I probably was.  That’s okay, though.  I’m okay with burning bridges very selectively, and when it counts the most.  Burning this bridge was the downside, but the upside to this was that all of my groups this semester have some of the most outstanding, dependable people on them.  This has led to one of my toughest semesters thus far as also being the least stressful.

By having a few tough conversations, I have avoided having lazy group members for the entire semester.  I cannot stress this point enough.  I’ve had the few, less than five minute, uncomfortable conversations, that have made a few people upset, but in the process, I have also greatly benefited my group and I for the rest of the semester by stopping undependable people from being in our group.  Doing tough things once that have a long term benefit are the opportunities you need to take advantage of.  It will be uncomfortable at the time, but it will pay dividends in the long run.

If I’m working in a group project, I am known to call people out when they don’t deliver.  Communication is a two way street; I expect people to do the same for me.  I hold myself to high standards, and that’s why I hold others to high standards.  When I say something candidly, it is because I expect others to also treat me with the same candid honesty.

It is important to note that if you do choose to be more honest with someone, back up your honesty with the evidence that leads you to believe what you’re saying.  Sometimes your thought process can be hard to articulate with more subjective topics, but it is essential to provide some sort of evidence to explain your thought process.

Forthcoming honesty opens up the line of communication to get substantial progress done.  I have found it to be one of the most critical, positively impacting skills I have acquired in my life thus far.

*Please take this post with a grain of salt.  While candid honesty and being forthcoming is advantageous in certain situations, sometimes it may be best to just let things go.  Use your best judgement.  The whole point of this post is to urge you to communicate more, even if it’s difficult at the time to tell someone how you really feel.  If you really want to take it to the extreme, take a look at this guy*