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Introduction

This is just a stub, a short placeholder piece as a reminder that something more detailed is needed.

Most people recognize honesty as a virtue, but there are several different forms of honesty, each with their own challenges.  Most obviously, there is honesty about the external world - "I stole the tarts."  But there is also honesty about yourself, and honesty with yourself.  Of these, being honest with yourself is perhaps the most fundamental, and the most difficult.

One challenge which faces all of us is to recognize the difference between our inner and outer reality, and understand how to build a healthy relationship between them.

For each of us, there is an inner reality (what we know and believe about ourselves), and there is an outer reality (what we know and believe about the outside world); the inner and outer worlds affect each other in complicated ways.  The physical world is mostly straightforward - I feel hungry and decide to eat, I eat, then I don't feel hungry as a consequence.  But the social world is much more complicated: I need to belong, and I need to be known - by a few trusted individuals, at least.  And, even at this simple level, there is often internal conflict - for example, when we feel that being too honest about something may threaten a relationship.

For most people, the need to belong over-rides the need to be known, for perfectly understandable reasons: for a social animal, rejection by the group means death.  So we wear a mask, we act a part, and learn to act different parts in different situations, to fit in.  Too often, we misrepresent ourselves in various ways to attract someone we like, and then find that they like the person we are pretending to be.

It is not just a social pressure we are responding to: in the work context, we are paid to do a job, to perform a role, and there is no necessary connection between the role and the person performing it.  Even when we see a connection, we may be mistaken - as illustrated by the old story of a deeply depressed man who goes to see a therapist; the therapist is unable to help him personally, but recommends that he goes to see the the great clown Grimaldi, who is in town at present and is sure to make him laugh; the man looks at him sadly and replies, "I am Grimaldi."

There are two basic consequences of the division between these two worlds.

Firstly, a frightening number of people will say that they don't know who they are - not really.  They know how other people expect them to behave, and how other people want them to behave, but they have no idea who the person in the middel really is, and may even doubt that there is a person somewhere inside.

Secondly, many people don't know how to be honest.  At least, they don't know how to be honest without getting sacked and wrecking relationships.  There is a massive life skill here, which nobody seems to be talking about or teaching.