Slippery When Wet's blog: "honesty"

Old bones and stones covered in sea lichen add an exquisite set of browns , grays and greens to the shore.
I love watching the salted sea ebb and flow over the stones. It looks old as death but really quite alive
for sea creatures, plants and the like populate its beds in an endless series of cycles of birth and death allowing for the varied coasts upon which we
live. I sat today examining my nature. Sounds simple, but it’s really not. Not if you dig deep..and you’ve
been lazy with yourself like I have.

To be alone. I thought deeply on this for there are those whose lives are such. They touch me as I feel their aloneness and
it makes my heart soft in the thought for no human soul should be without love and closeness derived from being just near.
To touch one’s shoulder with a very slight touch, it share a sunset in the very late afternoon, maybe a good laugh while discussing something silly,
or perhaps a drink with no words spoken and knowing that there was a warm spot reserved with their name on it in the bed later in the evening. These are things of great value and all humans crave such.

Sometimes you must be alone to really divine your nature for others crowd out thoughts that would normally flow into your mind. How can one divine their nature? Quiet times, simple moments without all of the cares of the world pounding for attention.
Not easy to do in today’s high paced world..everything clamors for attention. Block it out or set it aside
for a bit..take the retrospective look behind you and your life now. How does it feel? What needs to change? Are you afraid of
change?

Often change is the most difficult thing to face for it means you will certainly lose something and usually without certainty of any
gains. But if you let this fear dominate you will become sedentary and without great joy or excitement locked into the
path chosen..of course unless you already have this. Most of us can always afford some change for rarely are things perfect. Change is the
renewing agent of all life.

I have my demons to face..hard choices and painful change..but how can I be me if I shirk such change?

Honesty in the world today seems diminished as a value. In the past we had phrases "a man's word is his bond" and a person could be shot for lying. Today we see students cheating on exams and big lawsuits against individuals and companies for fraud, theft and the like. Honesty starts with ourselves. If we can't be honest with ourselves then naturally we can't be honest with others we deal with. We hear the phrase "know thyself". How many of us truly know ourselves? Do we take the time to delve into what we like and what we don't like, do we "value" honesty and truth? I really wonder. I am finding I don't know the answer to many questions about myself that i used to take for granted. I also wonder how much my subconscious mind is keeping from conscience mind. I need to understand myself before I can work with others about my needs and wants and also about my foundation of how much I really value truth. My success and failures of late have taught me I am lacking in this fundamental understanding. I am taking time to try to figure this out.

Once we face the honesty question within ourselves we can begin to apply it to our interactions with others. Let’s talk Fu. So many on here show themselves and portray themselves in a certain way that most of us know is bs. If we can’t show others our true self then what will they think when the find out the truth. Isn’t it all a massive waste of each others’ time? We lie about our age, we modify our pics, we pretend we have or are more or less than we actually are which speaks of deceit and lots of other unpleasant things. Suppose we actually get together based on these false premises. We cause hurt, damage ourselves, and ultimately there are no winners. WTF were we thinking!????!!??

We need to transform ourselves, but most have intense difficulty making this change. Our patterns of behavior have evolved over a lifetime and we become more set in our ways.

To improve humankind, ourselves, and enrich the lives of those around us we should strive for change even if it hurts which it will until it becomes our normal mode of interaction. Try just doing it with one conversation, instant message, or other message type. It will feel painful and may generate some tough feelings, but the long term value far outweighs that which we may feel in the short term. Keep in mind what we do then also impacts future generations thru our children and others.

Then as individuals pay it forward so to speak we can influence companies which are after all run by individuals and reflect their values.