My two cents on...honesty:

Honesty: n. 
1) the quality or fact of being honest;  uprightness and fairness. 2) truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness. 3) freedom from deceit or fraud.

I recently had to sit and really reflect on my life; where I've been, where I want to go, and come to terms with who I am as a person.  I looked over my many traits, characteristics, flaws and skeletons in my closet.  I'm so far from perfect I could throw a rock at perfect and not even be within the same time zone.  I walked through my mind full of memories, both the negative and the positive, and pulled out the ones I wanted to keep, and then I threw the rest in the trash pile along with those old jeans I'd been holding on to, hoping they'd come back in style someday.  When I was finished, what I was left with was a bare frame.  Like a house that's being built, but the walls haven't been put up yet.  I likened myself to that analogy.  The house frame with no walls.  I pieced together my frame and little by little, I watched myself begin to really take shape.  And in the foundation of the house, where all the rest of the frame extends from, and must remain secured to, lies ingrained my most precious trait.  Honesty.


I wasn't born with this foundation.  In fact, I believe I was born the exact opposite.  I lied my way through most of my childhood.  Or at least I thought I did, but found out later that I was such a bad liar no one ever actually believed the crap I was making up.  Some of my fondest childhood memories, actually some of the ones I've held onto for use on my children, are of me trying to lie my way out of something and getting caught, miserably crying and admitting my fault, only to then suffer a much worse fate than I would have had I only told the truth.  I just never learned.  As an adult, I never really understood the value of honesty until it was completely stripped away from everything I knew.  When you encounter someone who is so totally the opposite of honest, you finally realize the full scope of the word and all it actually encompasses.  One single moment defined my view on honesty forever.  I vowed that day to forge ahead and live the rest of my life, however long I was given on this planet, with honesty and integrity at my core.  I feel those two go hand in hand, but today, we're just focused on honesty. 


Who cares about honesty, right?  Why does it matter if I don't tell the truth?  If I had never had that defining moment, wouldn't I have gotten along just fine in life like everyone else who didn't have the pleasure of encountering such scum-baggery to open their eyes?  Absolutely, I would have.  I would have been just fine not returning the extra change the cashier accidentally gave me when I went to get groceries, or not telling Hubs that I was talking to an ex-boyfriend on Facebook.  I would have been able to sleep just fine at night knowing I hadn't put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, or that I hadn't paid for the sandwich I told the cafeteria cashier I would go back and pay for today.  If I hadn't had that epiphany of a moment, I would be walking around with an everlasting chip on my shoulder, sure that the world owes me something, therefore it's perfectly acceptable for me to lie my way through the tragedy of it all, in order to somehow rectify that chip.  


Being an honest person and living a life of honesty is hard work.  There's no gold star or trophy at the end, and there's no crowd cheering you on, like the crowd who'll cheer you on when you're trying to think of the perfect lie to tell your mom when you want to stay out past curfew.  Waking up each day and making the decision to fill your day with everything opposing what is false takes almost every ounce of effort in your soul.  It takes confidence, courage and self respect.  Not many people will say, "hey great job for not giving in and taking the easy way out today", and because of that, living a life of honesty goes against the majority.  It means you get laughed at.  Your friends will wonder why in the world you would ever choose to miss out on the party of the century, because you're not 21 yet, and you'd need a fake ID.  It's hard work to tell your spouse everything, especially if it's something you've never told anyone else, or it's something that you're ashamed of.  And being honest with yourself may be the biggest challenge of them all.  No one likes to look themselves in the mirror and admit who they really are.  We are our own worst enemies, and when we are honest with ourselves there's no turning back.


The realization of the true meaning of honesty is the moment when that chip on your shoulder falls off, and you see that the world owes you nothing.  You are just as much a part of the world as you are a part of everyone else in it.  You owe everyone else just as much as they owe you.  You hand the change back to the cashier because you already know that later that day, when her manager comes to reconcile her drawer and notices the shortage, she'll be let go since this is her third offense.  See, she's got a learning disability that's gone undetected for all these years, lost in the public school system, and she gets so flustered and confused when there's a long line at the register and someone is trying to use too many coupons.  Maybe, since you don't have that chip on your shoulder now, you notice her struggle and hand her a card for the local mentoring program you're a part of when you hand her that change back.


After my soul searching quest, my walk down memory lane and my interesting comparison of myself to a house, I realized many things about who I am and who I am not.  Most certainly I can tell you, I am proudest of the honest life I live.  I can look myself in the mirror any day of the week and tell myself who I am.  I don't have any trophies or gold stars, I get laughed at sometimes and I definitely feel vulnerable on my off days, but I feel a thousand pounds lighter since I got rid of that chip on my shoulder.  My challenge, for the two cents it's worth, is for you to get rid of yours.  I challenge you to go to sleep tonight, and wake up tomorrow with a new conviction toward living a life of reckless honesty.  Honesty that is unstoppable, unwavering, and steadfast.  You'll be amazed at what will happen when you let go completely of who you thought you were, who you were trying to be for someone else, or who you knew you shouldn't have been in the first place.  Be the you that is stripped down to the frame, after all the nonsense is thrown in the trash with the ugly jeans, and before all the walls were put up.  Just be you.