Honesty. What is the depth to which we employ honesty?
As we become adults, it grows ever easier to be honest about things like receiving too much change at the grocery store. Or, who was first in line at the coffee shop.
But there is a depth and breadth to honesty which we all experience, consciously or unconsciously, that rests at the core of our very being. Dictating our responses and behaviors in situations where our mettle is tested. Which leads to the question:
What does honesty mean to each of us? And are we honest in what is, arguably, the most essential way: with ourselves?
How are we, as humans, ever to be at peace if we cannot accept our humanity?
It is the thief and the rapist and the philanderer and the vagrant and the miscreant in all of us, however small, that needs to be recognized and thusly stripped of its power by our tacit acceptance of their existence.
I have the most peace, albeit not without difficulty, when I am the most honest with myself. When I am the witness to my life. Not simply as a passive observer, but an active participant; watching my responses to life and then consciously, and continually, shaping my existence based on what feels right.
And when I am listening, really listening, to what feels right and I have developed the capacity to change and love whoever I am--it is then, that I am whole.