Day 25 – Honesty Is the Best Policy

It feels like it’s been years since I blogged, but between my miserable experience with a root canal and the fact that Ryan (my awesome prompt-meister) has been bogged down with work, I just haven’t had the energy or the encouragement. But this awesome stuff has become important to me, and a week without awesome is like … well, like not very awesome. So against my better judgment, I’m going to create my own prompts until Ryan is able to get back on the blogging bandwagon.

“Honesty” is a topic that’s been on my mind. I’ve always considered myself an honest person, but when I thought about challenging myself to go through an entire day without telling even one little white lie, I kept putting it off till tomorrow. Seemed there was always some reason why I wouldn’t be able to follow through. Which led me to believe that maybe I’m not quite as honest as I thought I was.

So today’s challenge is to practice rigorous honesty. To try to stop myself before saying anything that isn’t 100% true. And if I can’t say something that’s true, not to say anything at all.


Sadly, the first interaction I had with someone resulted in a lie. A person I am not particularly fond of asked me if I had a pen and I automatically said no. Basically, I didn’t want to lend her a pen because it would probably result in having to converse with her. So it was easier to just lie. My bad.

My next opportunity to be honest went a little better. When considering attending an event, I spelled out the concerns I had about going and offered some options on how I could get through it more comfortably. Whether or not the other person took my suggestions seriously is not my problem. I was honest and that’s what counts.

I must admit that it was a relatively easy day for honesty. Not too many instances of moral ambiguity or difficult decisions to make. Just the usual work and life stuff.

When evening rolled around, I honestly stated that I was just not feeling well enough to go out. I got some push-back, but I stood my ground. In my experience, I’ve found that if I’m not true to myself, I can’t be honest to anyone else. As it turned out, I fell asleep on the couch at about 8:00. I would definitely not have been good company at any event!

And that’s the truth!