Are you being honest?

Are you being honest ?

How honesty changes your communication?

“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it’ll get you the right ones” John Lennon

Effective communication is largely based on trust. We simply can’t form meaningful connection if don’t trust the person we’re talking to this maxim is certainly true is friendship. For instance, we need to know that our closest friend will tell us honestly if a dress is too tight or too shirt, if we have a piece if spinach stuck in our teeth, or if we have stepped over the line at work. And we have to know that a true friend will help us figure out how to fix some of our mistakes.

But don’t we all lie even just a little? We all can sometimes be untruthful even with our closest friends. When we tell them that we can’t notice they’ve gained any weight, or that their baby is the cutest thing we’ve ever seen…. Is that morally wrong?

Many of us choose tact over truth when talking to friends, acquaintances and even colleagues. It’s an inescapable aspect of human nature. We are relational animals, which mean that our connections to others are crucial to our emotional and physical well-being.

Most of the time, honesty in important to keep these connections going, but some truths can be more destructive than helpful. How can you decide when it’s best to fudge the truth with a friend, and when it’s the best to be painfully honest?

One of the ways to decide what to do is to be honest with yourself: ask yourself what you motives are. It’s vital to remember that your truth is not necessarily your friend’s. Thus, it’s important to tease out not only why you want to tell someone your version of the truth, but also how it will affect them.