The Greatest Gift You Can Give and Receive: Truth
Being honest and sharing the truth is the greatest gift we can give each other. Truth is the foundation for deeper meaningful relationships.
Bonds are formed by being honest and truthful, not by dishonesty and fearing to speak the truth. Fear of being able to express your voice makes you silence yourself and be inauthentic, which doesn't build a real, genuine authentic bond between people. Appearances and fakeness/falsity aren't the substance of truth that can get us to connect at a deeper real level.
Being real with someone is about being honest. Honesty forms real, authentic, genuine and true relationships.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
- Henry David Thoreau
Source
If we want real love, we need to be real and speak the truth to people, not accepting falsity between us. This applies to both the truth about the world which is more impersonal, and what someone is experiencing inside to get someone else to connect at that personal level.
Truth matters. Trust matters. We don't "truth in others", but we do "trust in others". Trust is proxy for truth. If someone lies to us, they prevent us from having the truth by perpetuating falsity. If we learn about their lies and falsity, it's a form of disloyalty and betrayal, and we lose trust in them. Our trust, faith and loyalty in them gets destroyed in part or in whole.
This is how important truth is in being able to trust others. Don't lie to people, it comes back to hurt you in the end after you hurt others with your disloyalty and betrayal.
If you want to have the strongest relationships with others -- be they friends, family lovers or children -- give them the respect of being honest and truthful about what is real and unreal. That is how you build a bond, build trust, and build unity.
As soon as you say things that aren't true and act as if they are, you create a potential break in the bond and connection you can have with others. That bond may never be rebuilt as strong as it was or as it could have been.
To demonstrate the power of the negative or falsity in life, we can look at what is called a Truth Table, or Conjunction of Propositions. This demonstrates that if any of our premises are false, our conclusion will automatically be false as a result. This also applies in real life.
A proposed aspect of reality, a piece of knowledge, can be true (1), false (0) or probable (.n), whether a fact or a possibility. Conjunctions (or unity) of propositions/premises, form true conclusions if -- and only if -- all premises are true (Rule 1). The unity of a propositions forming a conclusion is false and negated if any one of the premises is false (Rule 2). Probable conclusions are also negated and false if any premise is false, otherwise their probabilities compound (Rule 3).
The only time you get a true result is if all constituent parts are true. This is the power of falsity and the negative. You could have 99 true premises, and if you have 1 false premise it will create a false conclusion. Falsity taken into a conclusion will corrupt and poison that conclusion.
This is the power of falsity. One false thing can destroy everything that was previously built. Relationships are fragile. Lies can destroy the relationship you built.
It takes work to build trust. But it's even harder to rebuilt trust that has been broken. It can be rebuilt in some cases, and in other cases it will never be at the same level of quality construction and solidity it was before.
Betrayal and disloyalty strike hard at the foundation of any relationship. Speak the truth even if it hurts, even if it's uncomfortable for others to hear. Truth is love, love is truth.
Sure, many have personal love in relationships, but so much of that is based on people not talking about serious issues that bother them. Our relationships and friendships are based on the ignorance of not saying things that might offend of insult another person and have them not like us. Relations are somewhat superficial in that case. Create authentic, genuine and real relationships instead by putting truth first.
Don't lie by willfully propagating falsity that robs people of the truth you can give them instead. Don't be a truth-stealer, be a truth-giver.
Truth is the greatest gift we can give or receive. Truth is the foundation for deeper relationships through open and honest communication. A deeper form of love and care can develop from authentically living in truth, trust and transparency. Do you have real love when someone lies to you? No. Truth matters and comes first.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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Great article! I vibe with this a lot! I think this is one of the best articles I've read on steemit so far, in fact.. Not just on steemit, but anywhere really.. I've tried to be really honest in my life and felt like that often wasn't reciprocated and what you said resonated pretty deep with my experiences. I think in order to have a really deep relationship with others we have to be able to trust them, and even a small lie can lead to suspicion and a degradation of trust. Which is one reason I try not to lie at all. We need more trust in this world, secrecy and lies are one of the worst challenges we face. Hopefully in time more people realize how important honesty is! I'm really enjoying your articles so far. Thanks for contributing such useful content!
Thank you :) I'm glad you gained value from it. I have written a lot of things with respect to the importance of truth and morality, psychology and philosophy. I try to illuminate the path and way to caring for truth, despite it not reaching many people ;)
You're welcome. :) That's a good attitude to have! I feel similar. And I try to look at it like.. Even if I don't reach a lot of people.. You never know when you might reach someone who helps a lot! Like maybe you didn't reach the most people but you reached the right people. :) Like the next Einstein or Tesla or something like that, who knows.. You never know who you might reach and how your words and actions and ideas might ripple out into the future! :D And.. Ultimately I think there's something rewarding there for the self, just to try to express yourself, regardless of how it's received by others. Sometimes it's good to just get those thoughts and feelings out of you into whatever form whether it's writing or painting or music or whatever kind of method suits you at the given time.
To Be yourself is the truth in any circumstance
Not to Be lying to others and yourself.
Not to Be is a false-self you will be what you have not been.
But the truth depends on how much you know yourself, and how you've got rid of your false-selves.
I've been burned so hard countless times by telling the truth.
I'm reminded right now of Ricky Gervais' movie The Invention of Lying. Spoiler Alert: The ultimate lie he creates is religion. Other than that, the entire movie is a great example of all the situations where telling the truth is incorrect.
The world isn't black and white. Of course, I agree with a lot that is said here, but I think it's super idealistic and ignores the dynamics of reality.
There are some conversations where the truth is irrelevant. That's why we have politics. I didn't make the rules. I hate the rules, but reality doesn't change because of hopes, dreams, and emotions. Hopefully we get there one day eh?
You can find someone pretty or not, so what? Some people are better looking than others.
Be honest if you want to uphold integrity, even when you did something wrong. Now, for traffic violations, there can be a justified reason, as many are there to prevent people from engaging in behavior that increase the potential to harm others. Speeding has that potential, but some speed limits are a joke.
Lying to to the embodiment of something wrong is doing something right, as the wrong will nail you for not adhering to something wrong. Admitting we did something in a deluded system can mean we get punished fro not doing anything wrong. Smoking cannabis for instance. Lie to the evil empire, and prevent yourself from being swept up in its madness.
Qualified for a job? If you aren't then don't make shit up. Be honest, don't lie.
In general, don't lie. It's obvious. Yes there are nuances to understand.
What's your stance on little white lies? Would you lie to someone to make them feel better?
No. I don't like to appease people by spreading falsity.
Well everyone knows it !!!
Everyone knows that one should not lie. Everyone knows that truth is the base of any relationship but people still lie. Why do you think they do so?
Because of some constraint, some compulsion, some helplessness. I think telling people not to lie is not the solution because lying is not the problem. The problem is something else. We should find the root cause of every problem. Only then can we find a solution to it.
For example - a son lies to their parents because they might be TOO STRICT, they might be people who overreact. In this case, the problem is not the son's lying, but failure of his parents to understand their child !!
I mentioned how the truth can hurt and can be uncomfortable, but it goes both ways to speak it and receive it. Just because someone doesn't like to hear it and reacts negatively, doesn't mean we should lie. The child or an adult can speak and get negative reactions from people, that doesn't justify lying. The root is the lack of care for truth, whereby people don't openly receive people speaking it and punish them for it. The problem of lying is still in the agent who does it, no matter the relationship of those who react negatively.
Well i think thats a theoretical thing to say !!
Because I am not a liar but I HAVE TO lie at times when I know people won't understand the truth and speaking truth, instead of lie would harm our relationship. What should one do in that situation? When telling the truth would put you in trouble but lying would save you ?
The value of truth is infinite and can not be measured with money.
Well said. And we know that the greatest truth is found in God. Thanks for sharing this and your continued dedication to spread the truth. @krnel.
"God" is an idea that may or may not be true. It's not demonstrable.
we have to be honest and always tell the truth...
but now a days everyone is telling lies about their benefits.