Honesty and Openness
Trying to make sense of crazy will drive you crazy.
working late again
There is a truism that everybody lies all the time. People lie the most to those they are closest to, and often tell the honest and open truth to those that don’t matter at all. The lies might be deliberate untruths, or a lie may be not telling the whole truth. A lie by omission is still a lie. Perhaps the biggest and most hurtful lies are when someone you care for just doesn’t tell you anything at all about something important to your relationship.
The biggest lies, the most lies, are about money and sex. Someone who cheats on a partner is going to need to weave an immense tissue of lies. Someone who steals, spends their partner’s money, dissembles, deceives, tricks, and seduces will undoubtedly always have been a liar, and will always be a liar ~ especially they will lie to themselves.
Because liars do not just lie to others, and since they also and always lie to themselves, they often don’t understand honour, honesty, and truth . Trust me I’ve been there, I have compulsively lied to others, told tall tales, lied by omission, and lied to myself. Maybe that was not my fault. For years I suffered from a serious and undiagnosed personality disorder, an emotional illness that I found more than ordinarily difficult to cope with.
Being honest and open takes courage. Finding an acceptable way to tell an uncomfortable truth takes a lot of emotional energy. Letting someone know the real you by telling the unvarnished truth is not something many are prepared to do.
I appreciate people who tell me the truth in a gentle way, even when it’s tough to say. ~ Karen Salmansohn.
Even harder than always telling the truth when asked is being open ~ allowing another person into your comfort zone, letting down the barriers you’ve built precisely to stop others from knowing the real you. Not many are prepared to let anyone else know who they really, really used to be, are now, and their dreams, desires, and wishes for the future. These are the most personal things imaginable, often difficult and painful to even think about, let alone talk of. But it’s precisely because these things in our past, present, and future may be difficult, painful, embarrassing, shaming, and outside of societies accepted ethics that we should be prepared to share them openly and honestly with those we care for the most.
Some say that they never tell a lie, and that is always a lie. And that they never hide the real truth, and that is always untrue. All I know is a a man is never more honest than when he admits himself a liar.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
and some people can’t help themselves
they are compulsive liars and always will be
walk away
Acceptance and Understanding
Any fool can know. The point is to understand.
In any real relationship there sometimes comes a point where the past raises its ugly head, and that’s where things can get complicated. The problem is that if the past is not accepted and understood, then the future is going nowhere except into a slow-motion train wreck.
What is needed is real acceptance and understanding of the simultaneous past / present / futures. For without that there is no real point in continuing any relationship.
What is acceptance, and what is understanding? There is a big difference between reluctant acceptance ~ which is what most people descend to ~ and true honest understanding.
To reach the nirvana of true and honest understanding, there must first of all be true honesty. And, in this life true honesty is as rare and fleeting as a double rainbow.
I have never before known real honesty in a relationship. Perhaps excepting right now.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Money ~ Trust Nobody
Even Banks and Credit Card Companies are Dishonest
There is a truism ~ everybody lies. These days, even the people you should be able to trust to help you look after your money will lie to you. Just three recent examples in the news;
- Thousands of staff at Wells Fargo Bank routinely created false customer accounts based on real customers’ email addresses. All told about 2 million fake accounts were created. These fake accounts were allegedly used by staff to meet their sales targets ~ and some 5,300 Well Fargo staff have been fired. Would that it were all ~ trust me, there is more nasty news to come on this one concerning customer charges and wrong-doings higher up in the bank.
- The great credit card scandal continues. Credit cards are a rip-off for everyone except the banks. Despite official interest rates being at an historic low, the interest charged on credit card balances continues to rise to usury levels. And, in Britain Mastercard is accused of setting punitive charges on retailers, resulting in an estimated overcharging of £14 billion between 1992 and 2008. Guess who ends up paying for all this ~ you do. Mastercard are being taken to court in a class action.
- Four ex-employees of Barclays Bank are facing long jail terms for manipulating LIBOR. You may think LIBOR, (London Inter Bank Offered Rate), has got nothing to do with you. As a matter of fact the interest costs of everything you have ever borrowed is based on Libor. If you can’t trust the financial markets, then who can you trust?
Not one of the companies and people you trust to manage your money are completely honest with you. When it comes to your money, trust nobody.
Complete honesty is much more than not cheating, stealing, and lying ~ although banks, insurance companies, pension providers, credit card companies, financial advisers, et al, do more than enough outright cheating, stealing, and lying. Complete honesty means not lying by omission, being straightforward, being open, telling you what you need to know, avoiding obfuscation… None of the financial companies and people you deal with abide by that definition of honesty.
If they wanted to be really honest, then they wouldn’t have you sign a legal agreement which included pages and pages of small print.
What should you do;
- Check your bank and credit card statements for unexpected items, especially unexpected charges.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- If it looks to good to be true it is.
- If you don’t understand something, have it clearly explained until you do understand.
- Never pay for financial advice, never pay an up-front or annual fee for a credit card or bank account.
In high finance there is a concept called ‘counter-party risk’ ~ one of the assumptions in that concept is ‘buyer beware’, never assume that the person or company you are dealing with is telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
George Bailey would be horrified.
~
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
