Honesty is an aspect of integrity that’s often sorely neglected. There are many examples of how the lack of honesty is tolerated, and perhaps even encouraged, today. It used to be that you either had money or you didn’t. When you bought something and the bill came, you had to pay it or there was an immediate problem. There were only two alternatives: you took care of your debts, or you were a thief. Some people would literally take their own lives if they couldn’t honor their debts.
I (Jim Rohn) am sure we can all agree that’s not exactly true any longer. Many people don’t feel the same kind of personal responsibility about paying debts promptly. And today, of course, we can put off paying for our purchases as long as we can make the minimum payment on our credit cards.
We can avoid the pain that comes with having to shell out hard cash for something, the pain of maybe having to give something up in order to have this thing… we can put it off indefinitely as plastic debt. There’s going to be a high rate of interest on that debt, and the balance due can quickly mount up, but most people don’t even think about that. It’s a price they’re willing to pay in order to have exactly what they want right now.
There are many situations in which it’s painful to tell the truth. It’s painful in just the same way that paying a big, fat bill is painful. In fact, we even use the same words to talk about paying debts and telling the truth. We talk about somebody’s word being “like money in the bank.” We talk about being “held accountable,” about “having to account for yourself,” about being “called to account.”
If you’ve done something that you’re not really proud of, and you’re called to account for it, what does that feel like? How do you handle it? What are your options when you’ve got to explain something that makes you uncomfortable? It’s a bit like that moment of decision when the credit card bill comes every month. If you want to pay off the whole balance, there may be some pain and sacrifice involved. You may have to grit your teeth. You know your life will be simpler in the long run, but it’s going to hurt a little right now to pay off the new golf clubs, or the new computer, or the sixty-foot yacht. I don’t actually know if you can put a yacht on a credit card, but I’ve certainly known people who would if they could.
Gritting your teeth and paying in full can hurt, so quite often it seems easier to delay the pain until next month. It’s easier to float the truth of your finances off onto a little imaginary plastic flying carpet and sail it into the mailbox. Of course, it’s more like a boomerang that’s going to come around and hit you in the back of the head someday.. but as Scarlett O’Hara once said, “I guess I’ll think about that tomorrow. For the time being, it’s gone with the wind.”
Let me give you some good advice about avoiding a “bankrupt character.” Pay your ethical debts. Keep your integrity in the black. Face ugly realities with the truth as soon as they appear. When you feel that temptation to hedge, resist it immediately. Don’t treat it casually, treat it like a grease fire that you’ve got to put out before it burns your house down or fills the whole place up with so much smoke that you can’t see where you’re going anymore. Because that’s exactly what will happen when your ethical capital runs out: you just won’t be able to see where you’re going, and no one will be able to find you.
Here’s another way that being untruthful is like buying on credit: they’re both addictive. At first, they are both so easy, they leave you wanting more. Any addictive behavior offers a simple, short-term escape from a problem, but that escape becomes more and more complicated as time goes on. Lying can get extremely complicated. You’ve got to have an outstanding memory to be a good liar. You always have to create more lies that are consistent with the one you told in the first place. I’m sure we have at some time been caught up in a little dilemma like that. Shakespeare had it right all along: “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Maybe you think I’m being a little harsh here. Am I really saying that in every instance you’ve got to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? If somebody asks me, “How are you today?” I’m supposed to say, “Well, to be honest with you, I have a sore finger, last night I had a headache, and I’ve got to admit that my foot hurts a little…”?
No, that’s not what I mean. In fact, I think there are many times when some flexibility with the whole truth and nothing but the truth is called for, especially when it comes to tactfulness with others. Outright lying, however–planned lying, lying with an ulterior motive, lying for personal gain–is definitely something to be avoided.
So I want to make a clear distinction between what I call foolish lying, and lying that is downright evil and poisonous to the character.
Boasting, bombast, blarney, braggadocio–these are all the same thing. They’re always floating around in the atmosphere and they can affect you at any time, like catching a cold. They’re mostly harmless, unless you start building your relationships around them.
Some other guy scored the touchdown back in high school, but you’re watching the Super Bowl with your neighbor, and you say that you did it. That’s pretty harmless.
You don’t really know Joe, the president of XYZ corporation, you were just introduced to him one time, but the client you’re trying to impress has never even shaken hands with Joe, so here’s a chance to score some points. That’s pretty harmless, too.
You’re not really the creative director of your ad agency, you’re a copywriter, but the woman sitting beside you on the plane to Phoenix will never know the difference. It’s harmless–unless she walks into your office someday. It’s a small world, but you’ll chance it.
All of this is childish trash talk, and it’s usually spontaneous. It comes from succumbing to a moment of social pressure, and it probably won’t hurt with such casual acquaintances. But here’s a word of warning: don’t try to build long-term, meaningful relationships with half-truths. They simply don’t provide a very good foundation.
In any case, this kind of bragging and blarney should be distinguished from what I consider real lying. Real lying isn’t like putting bills on the credit card; real lying is like theft. In my opinion, a key element in this kind of real lying is the presence of planning and premeditation.
If a supervisor in a corporation steals one of his subordinate’s ideas and submits that idea to the CEO as his own, that’s lying. And that kind of lying is theft. It’s not only theft of the subordinate’s idea, it’s stealing from the CEO, too–it’s stealing the CEO’s sense of reality. It’s creating an illusion. If someone falsifies an earnings report to inflate the price of a company’s stock, that’s deliberately creating a mirage in the minds of investors. In the real world, both these examples have taken place and, many times, lives and careers have been ruined.
It’s been may experience that those who engage in serious lying and unethical behavior get caught one way or the other. Usually, the people who are being deceived awaken from the illusions that have been foisted upon them. But even if this never happens, the criminal–and I don’t think that’s too strong a word–has to invest so much of himself into the illusion that his own sense of reality is eroded. By trying to delude other people, you end up losing your own sense of reality.
All of it–small-time lying and big-time deceit–comes from fear. Somebody is afraid the truth about themselves isn’t good enough, so they depart from the truth. Somebody fears they can’t really come up with ideas of their own, so they steal somebody else’s ideas. Or they fear their company isn’t really going to succeed, so they come up with a way to inflate the share prices. It’s really cowardice.
Honesty means fearing the temptation to misrepresent who you are or what you’ve done. It means fearing the loss of relationships that are so vital to your success. It means fearing the lack of trust you may elicit from others. So trust who you really are. Trust your ability to earn the respect of others. Pay whatever price the truth costs. Pay that bill immediately, because in the long run, it’s a real bargain.
* Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn