Your Word

Wow. I am really at an exhale point. And it feels so good. The extra hour of sleep could not have arrived at a better time. October was a month of distractions of major proportions for me – good ones (enjoyable visits with loved ones, and fun, energizing personal projects) and bad ones (two major hurricanes rolling through my town). And in my life, at least for now, things feel back to a little more even keel (not counting the crazy, suspenseful election and that’s all I will say about this. This is not a political page. There are countless ones of those all over the internet and in your neighborhood and on your TV and in your face – I think that one thing that we all can agree on, is that it will be really, really good for this presidential election to be done and over with.)

I’ve noticed that a life lesson that is really being drummed into me at this time in my life, is just how much I value accountability. Reliability, accountability, doing what you say you are going to do, no excuses, etc., etc. is really, really important to me. I’d much prefer “under promising and over-delivering” to anything else. I value kind, direct and honest communication. Thankfully, my closest family and friends are those people. My family and my friends are my rocks. Rarely am I disappointed by any of them. I have chosen wisely. I also try to be the same dependable and reliable person for the people in my life. If I say that I am going to do something, I do everything I can to stand by my word.

People who aren’t reliable often don’t have bad intentions. They are usually good people with good intentions, but are often not organized nor realistic. They tend to be people pleasers, who promise the moon, and think that they’ll figure out a solution to getting you the moon, later . . . . And then, what’s so hard in these situations is that often the disappointed party, ends up feeling like “the bad guy” for calling the unaccountable party out. Often times the person who gets let down feels badly for feeling disappointed and angry and frustrated. People who are manipulative snakes know what they are doing, and they don’t feel badly about leaving you in a lurch. (but the true, evil snakes of the world, are few and far between. Call me Pollyanna, if you will, but this has been my experience in my almost 54 years of life) So, the usual situation which I have experienced is a transaction between two good people who want a satisfactory experience, but one person is not good at living up to their word, and the other person has to keep lowering and lowering their expectations. And then it becomes sad and squirmy and an overall negative experience for all of the parties concerned.

I just had to get this out. Thank you for witnessing me, friends.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

There has been so much in the news these days about dishonesty, “fake news”, spin doctors, and distorting the truth.  I found a couple of quotes about lying that made a lot of sense to me:

“Truth is completely spontaneous.  Lies have to be taught.” – Buckminster Fuller

“The advantage of telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said.” – Rita Mae Brown

The older I get, the more important the absolute truth has become to me.  Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie A Few Good Men, famously shouted, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But honestly, that just isn’t true.

The truth always comes to light.  What is done in darkness, always comes to light.  So when we lie, not only does the person or entity who we lied to have to “handle” the uncovered truth, they also have to “handle” that they trusted someone who lied to them.

“Every lie is two lies – the lies we tell others and the lie we tell ourselves to justify it.” – Robert Brault

I feel like a sick-in-my-stomach teenager just writing this post.  There are few things in the world that make you sicker to your stomach than lying and/or being lied to by someone you trust.  We all probably can remember that feeling when a parent or an authority figure or someone we loved deeply looked at us with grave disappointment and stated that they did not know when they would be able to trust us again to tell them the truth, after we told them a careless, hurtful lie.

“Telling lies and being deceitful takes so much more energy than being honest and sincere.” – Stephen Aitchison

I wish that we all had to the courage to live our truths, be our truths, and honor our truths.  Everyone is so concerned about what other people think about them, how they are being perceived and what persona to take on, in order to get the things they think that they want in life.  Lying is a natural outcome when we are living other people’s ideas of who we should be.  If we are living in truth, emboldening the truth, then it follows that lying would not be possible.  Truth and authenticity would be our only way.  Frankly, there are many people who we don’t particularly like in life, but we respect and trust them because we know firmly where they stand.  I would rather be a respected and trusted person, than a popular false persona whose choices and thoughts change on the whims of others’ impressions of me.

“A liar will not be believed when he speaks the truth.” – Aesop