11/01/2011
The Art of Telling the Truth
Rudeness is in the eye and ear of the beholder and the mind of the experiencer - that's not a world i know. Well anyway, in the US and maybe even Canada, honesty is greatly valued. Hmmmm maybe not. It's important to be honest in relationships at work, family and with friends. When we feel people are honest with us, we trust them and feel comfortable interacting with them. When we detect that someone was rude, blunt and honest we translate that into "dishonesty" and our "bullshit" meter goes up and end the interaction instantly.
I find a lot of cultures feel attacked by straight talk – and by people who speak as a matter of fact. But you gotta admit sometimes, it’s just plain exhausting to be so round about or is it? I personally have tried to be unfailingly honest throughout my life, only to find that my candor (while appreciated by a handful of people) is taken as offense and that I need to keep my mouth closed to avoid someone getting hurt or being upset with me.
I found great reward in a lot traveling I have done with my friends and meeting different people. The best travel is not about a list of monuments, museums, and landscapes, it’d about people, and if you travel well it is people that you are going to remember most. People that are strange, unique, foreign, similar, friendly, nice, hospitable, loving, kind, rude, outrageous, and normal that teach you a thing or two about the human spirit. These are the experiences that stayed with me forever, that no postcard can ever reproduce; my experiences taught me how to be diplomatic in ever sense of the word.
There is a great quote about diplomacy by author Caskie Stinnett that says “A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip”. It’s the art of telling the truth in the “nicest” way possible without sacrificing the message. It is the verbal art of pleasing or at least staying on good terms with – most people most of the time. But for some reason those who consider themselves avid poets, writers, bloggers have a way with words and are so damn tactful they just grab you. No I am not bitter really, I pride myself in thinking I am one of them!
And I don’t mean misrepresenting the truth in order to keep people happy — I’ve been guilty in the past. It simply means communicating in a way that people feel like their interaction with you has been positive. I still think I prefer being brutally honest in most cases. Simply because that is how I’d prefer others would talk to me. But I have discovered that frankness is best received with close friends and family who are used to my sometimes sarcastic witty personality - keeping it real out loud.
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