Honesty Is Not a Tool for Your Personal Gain
Welcome back to Mid-Week Meditations , Lifehacker’s weekly dive into the pool of stoic wisdom and how you can use its waters to meditate and improve your life.
This choice of Marcus Aurelius is aimed at those who believe that honesty is something to be used to good use, or some kind of gift to be given to those who are worthy:
Rotten pretense of someone who says, “I prefer to be honest with you!” What are you talking about, man? There is no need for this preface – reality will show. It should be written on your forehead, immediately clear from the tone of your voice and the light of your eyes, just like a loved one can read everything in the eyes of his beloved at once. In short, a kind and honest person should have the same influence as an unwashed one: anyone who passes by, willy-nilly, immediately discovers an aura. Calculated honesty is a stiletto. There is nothing more humiliating than friendship between wolves: avoid it above all else. A good, honest, kind person sees it in their eyes, and you cannot be wrong. – Meditations , 11.15
What does it mean
Starting a statement with a phrase like “I’ll be honest with you …” or “Honestly …” or “To tell you the truth …” is not necessary if you are an honest person. … If you are honest and kind, people will learn about it through your personality and character. Just by being around, everyone should feel that you are acting with the best of intentions. If you are dishonest, they will understand it too. People are much better lie detectors than they think.
Aurelius then refers to calculating honesty, or the selective use of honesty when it suits you best, as “stiletto” (Greek skalme ), but he is not talking about shoes here. He is referring to an assassin’s dagger with a long, thin blade designed to pierce skin and slits between heavy armor to end life in one move. In essence, Aurelius refers to calculating honesty as a tool used by villains who sneak through the shadows and do not fight fairly. In his eyes, choosing when to be honest and when to be dishonest is cowardly and false.
What to take from there
At the very beginning of our lives, we understand that lying is bad. However, somewhere along the way, we discover that the world is complex and that being completely and completely honest is much more difficult than we hoped. So we are lying. Sometimes lying is inevitable and for the best. After all, there is nothing wrong with saying “Everything will be okay” in order to comfort the other. You can’t see the future, so you can’t honestly say it, but that’s okay.
The real problem is not fooling around from time to time, no. This is when you decide to cling to dishonesty, to live your lies as long as it benefits you. He exudes a complete lack of sincerity and uses short bursts of honesty as a kind of tool to manipulate people in any way you see fit. One lie breeds another, and in the end you have lied so many times that you start to believe them yourself. You become one.
So what can you do? Is honesty the best policy? Possibly, but no one is perfect. Let go of your fears instead. Fear that you will be judged, fear that you are not good enough, fear that someone will catch the slightest smell of your weaknesses, and be honest. Be sincere and sincere and decide to share this with people directly as often as possible. Be honest and you can live honestly. If you find yourself constantly opening your conversation with phrases such as “I’ll be honest with you …” or “To be honest …” or “To tell you the truth,” you should wonder why … prepare them for your sincerity? Or are you preparing for something you rarely do?