Honesty??

Billy Joel was right: honesty is a lonely word. I have my reasons for wanting honesty in my life Nothing good has ever come from the lack of it, in my experience. So, in my adult life (and thanks to a couple of Oprah shows) I have been working on being more honest with the people around me. I have to say, it hasn't produced the level of happiness I had hoped for.

A few years ago, I went through a period of realization about myself and the ways that I related to the world. It seems that your 30's are the typical time for this to happen. I realized that I learned as a child to alter myself in order to please others, and part of that was keeping quiet about what I really thought or felt. I can remember a conversation with my husband when we were dating. He loves to debate issues, and he finally got so frustrated with my passivity he said "don't you have an opinion at all?" At this point, he may be sorry he opened that door!

The process of becoming "my authentic self" has been wonderful, and painful, and interesting, and healing. But mostly it's been ugly. I mean, uncoordinated, goofy, bad-dancer-kind of ugly. It has been like trying on a new personality that doesn't even come close to fitting properly. But I love the idea of being an honest, authentic person so I press on. My husband has borne the brunt of my progress, but I think he might say that I've improved some. I don't blurt awkward things out quite as often. And I've realized that being honest doesn't always mean that I need to say something right at that moment. Sometimes it's better to think it over for a while before you speak about it. Sometimes it's not.

By far, the hardest part in this whole process is that I've discovered that other people don't really want you to be honest. And instinctively we know this, because we say things like, "can I be honest?" or "if I were going to be honest, I would say...". Case in point: women's clothing designers. I guess they assume that people who wear bargain clothing are more well-adjusted than those who wear high priced couture. 'Cause we all know that a size 6 at Saks 'aint no size 6. It costs a lot of money to be told what you want to hear! Back to conversations, though. Do our insecure announcements mean that everything else we say is dishonest and just this one time we're going to tell the truth?? Actually, what I think is that it's code for "I know you might not like this but..."or "I am pretty sure you are going to think I'm a jerk, but..."

Lately, I feel like honesty has been very lonely. There is sometimes a high price to pay for speaking your mind - even if you try to do it for the greater good. I find it impossible to get the timing right - to speak at a time when my emotions are not going to get the better of me, and the other person is ready to hear something they might not like. See, I've done a lot of self-improvement in this area, but I'm still not as good at it as I would like to be. I'll continue working on creating monastic-like calmness, and study up on just how to deliver conversational lines and read micro-expressions. But, Billy you hit the nail on the head when you wrote your song. Sometimes, despite my best efforts I end up lonely.