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| Image courtesy of BrainyQuote.com |
Ya know, back when I was growing up, nothing was more
important than telling the truth. Our
parents constantly preached that to us.
Dad would sermonize about how truth-tellin’ was one of the most
important things in the character of a person.
Much to my surprise, on several occasions, he didn’t punish us quite as
bad because we ‘fessed up to what we had done, and told him the truth about it
all. However, kids being what they are,
we more often tried to lie our way out of whatever we had done wrong (and somehow thought that crossing our fingers while we were telling the lie would make it OK to tell the lie). A’course, it mostly did no good, and we were
found out in the end. After I became a
parent myself, I knew that the parent already knew who was responsible for what
before that conversation even began. What
all that sermonizing did for me (and I hope it did the same for my kids) was to
impress on me just how important honesty was.
Not only does it make life easier on me personally, but integrity and
trust are the bedrock of any relationship, be it family, business, or
friend. It is the one single virtue that
I hold in the highest regard.
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| Image courtesy of BrainyQuote.com |
When we were kids, we had so many ways of swearing our
honesty to our friends. We’d make an X
over our hearts and recite: “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in
my eye…”(sometimes shortened to just “cross my heart” with the X over the heart
motion), and of course there were “pinky promises”. There was the phrase “Swear on a stack of
Bibles”, often used in a question when trying to get to the truth of a secret
or gossip that a friend was telling you.
It wasn’t enough to just tell your friend that you were telling the
truth and not exaggerating… you had to “swear on a stack of Bibles” (although
there was never a Bible involved), or you had to “cross your heart”, before you
were truly believed. Our complete belief
was then given to what the friend was saying…. because, ya know… they swore on
a stack of Bibles…. Com’on!
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| Image courtesy of BrainyQuote.com |
Truth! Honesty! Facts, pure and simple! Something we are seeing a shortage of these
days. Truth is, facts are hard to ferret
out anymore. There’s almost too much
information available to us these days, and it makes it hard to figure out what’s
true and what’s sorta true, and what’s only kinda true, and what’s down right
made up stuff. So many shade of
grey. Here’s the thing though…. Even something
that is “almost true” is false. You may,
if you’re well-informed and do your research, be able to figure out what parts are true and what are not,
but the “almost true” is still false. It’s tricky…
Here’s the thing about facts… about truths…. Facts/Truths don’t care if you believe them
or not… they’re true anyway. That seems
almost crazy to have to state, doesn’t it… but all you have to do is read (or listen to) the
news to realize that there are many people that live around us
all that think truths and facts are something created, not something that just “are”. And the sad part is, they have thought this
for so long that they can’t find their way out of the darkness anymore.
Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor from 161 – 180, and known as
the last of the “Five Good Emperors”) said “Everything we hear is an opinion,
not a fact. Everything we see is a
perspective, not the truth.” That's a little bit mind boggling when you think about it. He didn't say some of the things, or a few of the things we hear/see......... he said EVERYTHING. That, of course, was his perspective.... his opinion. But it's certainly something to think about.
These words you are reading right now are, in fact, my perspective and
opinion. You get to choose whether you believe or disbelieve... whether you agree or disagree... whether it gives you food for thought... or not.
Cross my heart!!
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| Painting by Sandy Tracy |
