“Honesty is such a lonely word but mostly what I need from you. Honesty is hardly ever heard.” Billy Joel
Isn’t it true? We find it so difficult to be honest. Why? Well for one it’s easier. And it’s much easier to point out the shortcomings in others than it is to admit ours. Being totally honest is uncomfortable. To be totally honest makes us vulnerable. Moreover, were afraid to see ourselves as flawed. And all of us as humans are flawed.
However, to have truly authentic relationships with others we have to be honest. Someone once said, “the biggest lie is the one we tell ourselves.”
Many people deal and navigate through life lying. It’s how they survive. It’s how they get ahead. They’ve convinced themselves, that they just have to. It’s the only way that works. It’s a utilitarian way of survival. If it’s works, if it produces favorable results, it’s “good”. But it stiffels our growth. There’s no self improvement if we can’t admit the areas in ourselves that we need to work on. So we go about lying to ourselves and lying to others. We create Facebook pages with our best pictures and highlighting and touting how great our lives are. “May your life be always as great as the one you’ve created on Facebook.”
Then we compare our real life up against someone else’s Facebook life and we become depressed.
The truth is that we all have a messy life. Life is just messy. Living real in a fake world is better. We’ll be more at peace. We’ll be more humble. And we’ll be better able to comfort and be comforted. But it takes work. Only God can help us do it. The realization that we don’t have all the answers, but we know someone who does. Why not give it a try? You have nothing to lose other than your spuious artificial self.