Where Does Honesty Get You?

Honesty. We've been taught our entire lives to be honest, and if we are not, all lies will surface and come back to bite us in the butt. But really, our whole lives are based on so many lies! Everyone does it, apparently - to protect your children, to protect yourself, and basically lying is the new thing to do - you essentially HAVE to do it! If you expose your true self, you are left vulnerable and others will see who you truly are. They see room for attack and they will take advantage of it.

I am learning more and more you have to have many forms of yourself. You have to shape yourself to be who others want you to be. If not, you will not get the results that you want, and apparently over the last couple years, I have found out, and I believe UCLA will back me up on this one, that life is all about results. You are just a number, just another face, and unless you do something with yourself, you are just another body taking up resources. Unless you have the results that others are interested in, or even ANYTHING that others are interested in, you are NOTHING to them.

There's a Vietnamese quote, "Roll your tongue 7 times before speaking." It parallels the English quote, "Think before you act." And more and more I am finding out how important that is. You never want to say the wrong thing or let what you truly feel out, for it may impair what is about to happen tremendously. That is what you call a Froidian slip when you just let yourself go.

Everywhere. You can't be yourself. Not with your classmates, your coworkers, your significant other, your friends, your family, and it is just so much to take in that you forget who you are and cannot even be yourself to yourself.

What has society done to us?