I had a friend who was really dishonest with me. Decidedly and alarmingly dishonest. Monumentally dishonest. Perhaps then I should accept that they were never a friend in the first place. There is no place for dishonesty in friendship. Not in my world.
I will admit that when I found out I was stunned as I had always thought I was a really good judge of character. I have always relied upon my intuition and this is the first time it had failed me. My goodness I did not see it coming. Not in the slightest. Despite the rather massive surprise I got by way of a phone call, I attempted to deal with it in a graceful and delicate way. I hope a managed, but I have my doubts. Since then I have spent a rather inordinate amount of time beating myself up for not seeing the spaces in his stories. I totally trusted him as I trusted myself.
I trusted him with my own stories and told those stories with all the soft open honesty I believe is beautiful and essential. Honesty for me is crucial. It’s fundamental to who I am as a person. I don’t think we can connect as humans without good old fashioned open honesty. I believe it is a huge part of being an evolved and conscious human. Ultimately I think if you are not honest with others then you are not honest with yourself. If you are not honest with yourself you are in serious trouble and best you start spending some time alone to sort out that mess.
If you google the word honesty you are more than likely to find this: ‘Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness, including straightforwardness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Furthermore, honesty means being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere’.
That is pretty much how I saw him. I liked what seemed to be a straightforward way of talking. I liked the pauses in his stories. Those stories of his that appeared to be so full of integrity. I listened to each and every one with an open mind and soft heart. I liked what appeared to be a sincere interest in my own silly stores. How could I have misjudged this one so badly!
Perhaps in a another year I might have seen things differently but this came in a year when I been monumentally disappointed in a lot of people. People I trusted. People I loved. Perhaps they too are disappointed in me but at least I can say that I was never, ever dishonest.
In a year of big lessons this was just another one.
He does of course have options. He could step up and email or message me and explain. I will not email or message back. I am not interested in having the last word, but it would be nice to know why. He could call but that would take courage and I now doubt that he has that. If he had any moral fibre at all he would sit down with me and share this particular story over a cup of tea. He would tell me why and he would say he was sorry. I promise to be compassionate and listen with a gentle heart.
Sadly I doubt that he will ever read this. I doubt that he has the integrity to apologise and explain. I doubt he has the courage to face me over that cup of tea.
Why do I want him to do this? So that I can trust that I was not so totally wrong about him. That I did not misjudge it all so badly. That he really is the person I thought. So that I am not so terribly disappointed. So that I can start to believe again.
I don’t want to be disappointed in people. I really really want to believe that we are all good and that we all understand that we are connected. I just want people to be nice to one another. To be truthful with one another. To not disappoint when not having to is an option. We are all struggling to get from one end to the other. Please can we just do it with kindness and honesty.
As in the words of Gandhi: Be truthful, gentle, fearless.
nikivanvelden 