Ben and Me_ From Temperance to Humility - Cameron Gunn [57]
But here is a little more truth about truth.
We don’t want it. And we don’t engage in it. Not the bare, unmasked, whole truth. There is just no way we can handle it.
Can you imagine honest answers all the time? “How do I look in this dress?” “It shows the fact that you’ve gained fifteen pounds in the last year.” “Do you think I’m losing my hair?” “Losing? You hardly have any left to lose.”
I recently saw a reference to a study of forty thousand workers that found 93 percent of them admit to lying habitually and regularly in the workplace. Does it surprise you? How could it? We all lie (at least a little). The only thing the study shows is that 7 percent of the participants were lying.
SO WHY DO WE LIE? WE ARE SOCIALLY CONDITIONED TO LIE. WE reward and encourage deception. And maybe some of it isn’t bad. Little white lies are what keep our relationships together, our work-places tolerable, and our dinner parties interesting. Without them, people would be strangling each other with alarming regularity.
It was in this garden of understanding that I stopped to smell the lovely bouquet of Sincerity. (If you didn’t say that was the worst line of narrative you have ever read, you haven’t gotten into the spirit of Sincerity yet.) But if you look at Ben’s precept for the week, you’ll notice that he doesn’t advocate complete honesty.
“Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.”
No hurtful deceit. Isn’t that the key? Be completely honest? Always tell the absolute truth? Well, I would never want to advocate lying, but to suggest that absolute truth is desirable would be a tad naive (and possibly dangerous). Instead, it seems to me that what we are trying to avoid is deceit in its real form.
In trying to help me get a grasp on Franklin’s meaning, Chris suggested that Franklin was an optimist. By asking us to avoid hurtful and deceptive thoughts and to think innocently of the world, he was suggesting that we use the power of our words to shape it into a wholesome, honest realm, uncorrupted by negativity.
Indeed, Chris suggested I go forward with three tenets for the week: optimism, a positive alternative, and a penchant for thinking innocently about the world. I could do that. If Franklin was an optimist, then that is just one more reason to admire him. I might not be able to discover electricity, but I can avoid hurtful deceit.
I just hope no one asks me how her dress looks.
A Day of Rest
Physician, heal thyself ! In the previously mentioned spirit of Sincerity, I started the week by being honest with myself. I hate to admit personal weakness (though it may be painfully obvious to others), and therefore I rarely take a vacation. I don’t need vacations, I tell myself. Vacations are for weaklings. I am not a weakling. On the first day of Sincerity, however, I admitted fatigue. I was tired. I was pooped from trying to be morally perfect. I needed a break, and I admitted that to myself (okay, now I’m starting to sound a little bit like a clinical psychologist or a guest on Oprah).
In keeping with this theme of honesty, aren’t we all a little, well, driven? Don’t we mistake effort for progress? A little time to stop and smell the flowers might not kill us; indeed, it might make us all the more virtuous.
Thus, I decided to take a “mental health” day. I would do nothing useful (so much for Industry), be of no help to anyone, and basically just enjoy my day. No helping with the kids, no housework. No projects so long neglected that Michelle has forgotten that she proposed them. No, this was to be a day of the completely useless. Following so closely on the heels of Industry, it had a delightfully anarchistic feeling.
Of course, doing nothing takes some effort.
Staying home and putting my feet up was not an option. Sooner rather than later some unfinished business would call to me. I expected it would come in the guilt-inducing voice