Honest Abe...No...Really...

OK…so I’m looking around at our world today and I’m watching the news and I’m reading the paper and magazines and articles on the Internet and I’m wondering…what is the moral standard today for honesty? If you’re in any way cynical like me, you’re thinking that there really isn’t a moral standard in the world today. We see dishonesty in business, media, government, law, and damn near everywhere. Right? So given the prevalence of dishonesty, morality isn’t really a factor anymore.

Not even 50 years ago, business deals were done in a hand shake. A person’s word and commitment were held like a signed contract. You can still find people like that, even today. It’s just that they are people in their 80’s of older. They are the ones that enjoy telling the stories of the “Good Ol’ Days”. Funny thing is…they are absolutely right in that; at least as far as the trustworthiness and honesty of the people around us.

What has happened to us!!?? It’s almost as if people now take pride in being able to pull off a monster lie and not get caught! George Carlin said once that we live in a world of big men and little character. We have CEOs that are stealing from their own companies and worse, from the employees that make the company what it is today. But you also have employees stealing from their companies and selling things on EBay!! How in the world did we get to this point and more importantly, to my mind, how can we possibly accept this behavior, in ANY way?

We tolerate our government lying to us. Hell, we make comedy sketches about it. And why are they all SO funny to us? Because we all know that on some level, it’s true. We EXPECT our government to lie to us. We expect business to lie to us. Hell, we are even suspicious of charities lying to us. Something is definitely wrong here. And the sad fact is; I think it’s something basically wrong with us.

How many people were taught as kids that lying is wrong? However, how many of us EXPERIENCED that fact that lying can save your butt at times too? Have you ever heard an adult say, “If you tell me the truth then things will be easier for you, if you don’t they will be much harder.” or some variation? If something like that has ever happened to you, you unfortunately learned the value of a lie in our world. The problem is; I don’t think there is much emphasis anymore on the damage of lies. I think that’s the case because most of the damage is inside, to yourself, and your heart.

You see, when you lie, you teach yourself to not trust yourself. Even if you think you have a good reason to tell the lie, you continue to build that self distrust. Every time that you don’t keep your word or a commitment that you’ve made, you build that self distrust. You might even find yourself doubting yourself, or allowing yourself to let YOU down. After a time, when we start to see the same behaviors in other people, it’s almost like its normal and we accept it readily. We laugh at it and turn away from it and even pretend it doesn’t exist, or if it does, that it doesn’t affect us.

We allow people to lie to us, and tell them that it’s alright. We allow out government to lie to us, and tell them it’s alright. We allow businesses to lie to us, and we tell them it’s alright.

I don’t think it’s alright.

But in order for me to make any sort of difference, I need to make certain that it’s not alright for me either. Aye…there’s the rub. Right? Mahatma Ghandi says it best, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” That’s right, in order for us to stop the behavior; we have to stop the behavior in ourselves first. What does that mean? That means that you have to stop lying. Period. No little white lies, no exaggerations, no shading the truth, none of that crap. If you’re not telling the truth, you’re lying. It’s that simple. The other thing to do is to make damn sure that if you commit to something or give your word or promise; then you need to do that, no matter what. I know that sometimes that will mean making a sacrifice, but isn’t your word, honor, and integrity worth a bit of sacrifice?

If you stick to those simple things, for a day, then a week, then a month…you will find that suddenly, you trust yourself, just a little. And the behaviors of other people will start to bother you. The funny thing, though, is that YOUR new behaviors will start to bother them. But keep it up. MAKE them treat you differently. Hold them to a higher standard. Then together we can all hold the rest of the world to a higher standard and get a bit of decency back into life as we know it.

So come on, help me change the world. We can do it. Honest.