I sat down to write my weekly article not that long ago. I had a topic in mind, and for once I knew just what I wanted to say. I started typing and my intended article morphed into something completely different. It was something that needed to be said, for sure. But it was so deeply personal to me that I saved it on my computer and started completely over, because like everyone else, I have thoughts that are probably not necessary for the whole world to hear.
But why not? Why do we have such a fear of being vulnerable and transparent? What would happen if we weren’t so afraid? If we really said what we thought, no matter who could hear us? Don’t we despise the politicians who lie to us? We demand transparency of our leaders and honesty from the people we look up to, but of ourselves, we accept a cloak of social acceptedness. We say things like, “Shhhh! You can’t say things like that out loud!” to a radical friend, and give an automatic “I’m fine” when someone asks about our well-being. We are so desperately afraid of people seeing the deep feelings and emotions that we go through during a time of grief.
“Don’t bother them; let them have a quiet time of grieving.”
Why are emotions so taboo? Why must we bottle our feelings deep inside of us and wait until they explode on their own later on? Why do we always have to pretend that everything is okay? Why can’t we be honest about our lives and how they’re going, and be real about our emotions? Wouldn’t we be a lot more helpful to people if we could show them that they’re not alone?
What if?
What if we were real with each other? What if every time someone asked us how we were, we answered honestly, with nothing held back? What if we were honest about our struggles and dreams? What if the people who knew the "real" us were not just our close friends and family members, but everyone we came into contact with? What if we dropped the façade and stopped pretending? What a world that would be! A world where you didn’t have to put your best foot forward. Where “fine” was not a common declaration. What if we could say to each other, “Actually, I’m having an awful day,”? Then, we could talk about it. We could find something to smile at or to laugh about. If we could be honest about our real lives, maybe we could bear them a little easier, because we would no longer be carrying them all alone.
What if we refused to allow society to set impossible standards for us and freely admitted that we could never live up to them? Refused to pretend that we do. And decided to stop trying. What would happen in a world like that? Would society crumble because its impossible standards were no longer attempted to be lived up to? Would it deteriorate if the humans in it confessed that they are, indeed, human?
I don’t think it would.
So, here’s to honesty.
Here’s to transparency.
Here’s to being real.
