Honesty

               

 Chapter 17

Honesty

Construction Stage 2.1   Conducting Geological Surveys

SAL Model Stage 2.1   Honesty

 

A construction company must have accurate information about the soil, water table, and other geological variables when selecting a building site and developing blueprints for a structure's foundation. If you are to build a successful future as a self-action leader, you must likewise have accurate information about reality as it affects your personal life and the world-at-large.

Honesty is an absolute prerequisite to authentic Existential Growth. It serves as the foundation for all mutually beneficial and satisfying relationships as well as all lasting personal and professional success. Any product or relationship forged in deceit, fabrication, or falsity is like a "mansion built upon the sand." (1)

Such a relationship or product will eventually falter, fall, and fail.  

Building an integrity-based character begins with being honest with yourself. Self-honesty is all about making a complete commitment to objective reality—regardless of what you might think or feel about that reality.

In the contextually ironic, but ultimately sound advice of Polonius to his son, Laertes: 

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. (2)

 

Honesty then extends to truth-telling and transparency with others. But always remember that it begins with being transparent and up-front with yourself; the former naturally precedes the latter.

Existential Growth is predicated on an absolute dedication to truth and reality. In the long-run, no other success in your life or career can compensate for a lack of integrity or a failure to see things as they really are.  

History is full of people who achieved remarkable things, yet lived—and died—in ignominy because they lacked integrity in their personal and/or professional lives and relationships. Their duplicity, debauchery (or both) ends up marking their legacy as much as, if not more so, than their talents and accomplishments.

It is a perpetual and perennial moral and existential tragedy. 

But it is a trap that you—as a self-action leader—can choose to avoid through the faithful practice of SAL and the ongoing aid of Serendipity.  

Self-action leaders understand the ultimate foolishness and futility of living in any way other than according to principles of truth, trust, and trustworthiness. They clearly comprehend that witty truism of Abraham Lincoln's: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time,

and all of the people some of the time;

but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

—Abraham Lincoln

Far too many people in this world hold the erroneous belief that deceit, deception, manipulation, et cetera, is okay as long as you can get away with it. This paradigm is flawed because you never entirely get away with it. While you may "pull the wool" over the eyes of some—or even all—of the people in a given instance, YOU will always know the truth YOURSELF, and that knowledge will cause your integrity to atrophy and, if not remedied, to eventually die. 

When your integrity atrophies, it negatively impacts your self-confidence and personal esteem. No matter how hard you try to keep the truth hidden—and no matter how effectively you keep others in the dark—YOU will always know the truth, and one way or another you will eventually get caught—either by others, or by your own self-condemnation and personal collapse.

As Emerson once put it: Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

"Nothing is at last sacred but the

integrity of your own mind."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you tell the truth, you don't

have to remember anything."

—Mark Twain

"Honesty is the best policy."

—Benjamin Franklin

Thus, self-action leaders are continually committed to the TRUTH of every circumstance, situation, thing, and variable—and for two very specific and important reasons. First, because they comprehend the long-term foolishness and futility of any other practice or route. Truth telling is simply the easiest way to live in the long-run. And second, because they come to appreciate and love the truth so much that they cherish each and every opportunity to adhere to, honor, or rededicate themselves thereto.

It is the only sure pathway to Inner Peace.

SAL Master Challenge

EXERCISE  #16

1.  Think about someone you have not been honest with in the past. Go to that person, confess to and apologize for your dishonesty, communicate your intention and commitment to be honest in the future, and ask for their forgiveness. Then, to the extent you are able, repay or repair any damage that your dishonesty may have incurred. Do this TODAY, or at some point in the course of the next seven (7) days.

2.  If you have already been practicing circumspect honesty in your life and no confession is presently necessary, then write a journal entry about what you are doing to avoid and prevent dishonest words and actions in the future.  

3.  Is there something about which you are not being honest with YOURSELF? 

If so, reflect in your journal about why you have been choosing to engage in this and/or other self-deceptions. What are you hiding from or afraid of? What negative long-term consequences might materialize if you continue down your pathway of self-deception. What positive long-term benefits might evolve if you began telling the truth to yourself and others TODAY? 

I have completed the SAL Master Challenge EXERCISE #16

Your initials:__________         AP initials:__________

—Dr. JJ

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

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Chapter 17 Notes

1.  A reference to the first line of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem, Upon the Sand, which reads: "All love that has not friendship for its base, Is like a mansion built upon the sand.”

2.  Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark. Act I, Scene III, Lines 84-86.