The Truth be Told
Tell the truth first to yourself, assuming you know what it is.
When caught, some break down and others double down. And the more the double-downers refuse to admit error, a funny thing begins to happen. Uninformed bystanders will often come to the side of the gaslighters. They will blame the truth seekers as bigoted and heartless.
It is easily forgotten that living in a false narrative comes with a cost, a harm to the world, because it obscures what should be obvious in a fog of man-made uncertainty.
Try understanding and applying mathematics to important engineering problems in a world where two plus two is open to personal interpretation; where there is no such thing as mistakes; and no one is ever allowed to fail a test, even when they put no effort into studying beforehand.
This is how we end up with nicely dressed young Americans standing in a beautiful mall not being able to tell an interviewer what a continent is or what countries fought in the Revolutionary War and, most importantly, why. [See yesterday’s post if you don’t understand what I’m talking about]. They will support a pride parade over a Fourth of July celebration, for example. That’s right. I’m taking sides, and the reason I’m doing so is because telling the truth is the path out of hopelessness and despair at the level of someone’s personal life.
That, to me, is what makes the following song by Matthew West so powerful and important.
Oh, and when it comes time to confess your messes, be sure to do it first with safe people; those whose hearts beat in cadence with your own and who want you to find true freedom as much as you do.
In a culture that says everyone is a winner we all lose. There is a lot of truth in learning from mistakes; particularly in learning not to repeat them.