Wednesday, March 14, 2012

I love the way you Lie!

The most clichéd and well known proverb in English language is "Honesty is the best policy", yet none of the policies - neither corporate nor government, seem to embrace honesty. We expect governments of countries to be transparent or large Multi-National Corporations to be honest to us. We expect people surrounding us to be frank and open about their feelings. When we enter any organization we wish to read our bosses' minds or at least those of our colleagues so that we do not fall prey to organizational politics. We expect everyone to tell us the truth and not conceal their thoughts, thus making this world a better place.

But let me ask - how many of us are honest to even ourselves, keep aside the outside world? The answer would be a number far less than we wish to have. Then why are we so afraid to be honest? Why is it such a difficult affair to be honest? Why is honesty such an extinct virtue in today's world?

We come up with convincing excuses like - "it’s a highly competitive world", "why be honest when no-one surrounding us is", "being honest is passé and being street smart is the in-thing", or the most dishonest line - "who said I am not honest? I really am, swear to god!". But who are we kidding! If all of us were even truthful to ourselves half the problems we face in today's world wouldn't have existed. We are so afraid to be honest that we choose to live in a bubble: a bubble that becomes our comfort-zone, and within that zone, we lie to everyone around us(including ourselves) to appear happy and successful. Kids lie to their parents and parents are the ones who teach kids to do that in the first place. Employers lie to employees and vice versa, and being dishonest has become such a commonplace. 

If only we can all take the initiative to just be honest ourselves and not expect others to be. We might face problems and the urge of being otherwise would be too tempting, but if we overcome that phase and imbibe truthfulness in us and make it a way of life, imagine the impact! Social revolutions do not upsurge by massive preaching but by singular efforts of individuals who truly believe they can create an impact. Honesty defines the character not of the weak, but of the strong. Who we really are, is what we should preserve and should portray, not a wanna-be perfect person, don't you think?

4 comments:

  1. Great work Yoyo!
    Keep the momentum going..
    Looking forward to more blogs from you..

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  2. We have always been brought up with the stories of Mahabharatha and Ramayana where Good and Bad was clearly defined. Ram/ Pandavas were good and Ravan/ Kauravas were bad. That is how people interpreted those stories and were told to us. That is where your post seems to be coming from. You want to see the world where there is either a black person or a white and nothing in between. But the reality is that there can never been a complete white or complete black person. We are all always somewhere in between and that is the reality.

    Also you feel that the honest person is always good and a dishonest person is bad....or atleast it leads to bad things. But who defines the words good and bad? don't you think even that is relative to how you see things?

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  3. Although Good post....keep writing!!

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  4. Hey Vikram, first of all, thanks for going through the post and responding with your views. I really appreciate it!

    Now about the Mahabharata and Ramayana - i have never read either of them and my thoughts are purely my own, so i may be wrong. I totally agree with your point of view that there is no pure Black or White, it's only Gray that is pragmatic. But all that i am saying is, we are tending more towards Dark Gray than towards the Light Gray. What i mean is, no one can be perfectly white, but if each one of us tries to tend towards it, this world would be a much better place. And i also agree that good and bad are relative terms, but we have set notions in our mind that a priest is Good and a terrorist is Bad. It's all about wanting to tend towards being a priest and not towards being a terrorist.(Although, again both of them are extremes)

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