Thread: The Importance of Honesty

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
-Jesus Christ
Dead Sea Scrolls

One of the most difficult things you can do is get over your fear of what people think. We are all our own teachers. While others can provide signposts to guide us in the right way, it is us that must take what we have and change it, or strengthen it. A good therapist does not tell you what's wrong with you, they ask questions that lead you to discovering yourself.

One terrible flaw in our culture is that the appearance of intelligence has become more valuable than actual intelligence. People are afraid to humble themselves and learn, they are afraid to ask questions in school. We teach our children that there's no such thing as a dumb question while simultaneously conditioning everyone to avoid saying anything that would make them appear stupid. When we are asked questions, we cannot answer honestly, we must ridicule the person we are answering in the process.

The same behavior we attribute to the wise man is the behavior we punish our peers for displaying. The great philosopher, Katt Williams, once described haters as people that cannot respect the process or journey it requires to achieve greatness. We are all a society of haters. We take everything personally. We play a game, always protecting our ideal self or reputation, always fearful of revealing too much of our human side to others or to ourselves. But only by accepting the process and accepting our own inadequacies can we hope to transform them. Only by reminding ourselves not to take others personally and internalizing the learning experiences (always a student, never a master) can we become invulnerable or godlike.