Honesty

 If you look up honesty in the Webster dictionary the definition mentions truthful and trustworthy, not deceptive; genuine, frank; sincere. For me honesty means being transparent and not holding information for the purpose of gaining or having hidden motives from a situation. It also means keeping the promises you made to others and following through with your word. Your word is your honesty see, if you say things and don't get them done people will lose their trust in you and will not want to deal with you. Being transparent with others, and letting them know the truth will lead to more meaningful relationships. I know some of you say that sometimes telling people the truth is detrimental because the truth sometimes hurts. However misleading or deceiving others will be worse. In those situations when telling the truth may offend someone try changing your approach and think about what you are going to say to the other person and let them know your intentions are not to hurt them and you don't want them to be mad if they hear it from someone else, because they will feel like you didn't tell them purposely.

Being honest with others is important, however being honest with yourself is even more important. Think about it, if you are comfortable with lying and deceiving yourself doing it to others is so much easier. It is also way more destructive to lie to yourself whether it be your feelings about an issue or about your priorities in life. 

Being honest and practicing It every day is the foundation to change. Being honest about the issue that you are not okay with will help you acknowledge the problem. Whether the issue is your behavior or a toxic relationship in order to fix the issue you must recognize what it is you need to change.

I have struggled to be honest with myself, I did not acknowledge problems and negative feelings because I did not want to appear weak and I had to keep my image of calm, collective, cool. However in reality I was about ready to pop, ready to explode because of my anger, resentment and vindictive behavior. Afterwards I would dwell on the issue thinking I should have said this or done that ending up becoming even more outraged at myself. I would tell myself next time I won't let this happen and the funny thing is due to my lack of honesty with myself and others I would find myself in similar situations. How could I have started to become honest with others if I can't even be honest and stop deceiving myself.

One of the reasons I believe I struggled with this is because I wanted to fit in and be accepted by others. I have learned that I am a perfectionist and I criticize myself so much and beat myself up, even when I did an okay and good enough job I always find a way to criticize myself and say I could have did better. I was trying so hard to impress other people and trying so hard to fit in that I found myself living the social media fake life. I was doing things to impress others, this way my way of getting attention and approval from others. I was living a fake life, it was an illusion just to be accepted and approved by other people so that I would not feel lonely. How stupid I was because the real ones who would love me unconditionally, I didn't have to dishonest just for validation from others. The real ones would love me just the way I am, the honest transparent, truthful me.

This was very sad and honestly I believe my drug use started not only because it made me feel good but also because I was accepted into a new social group which boosted my high and made me feel good about myself. I noticed over time that some people were not around for me but for the drugs and eventually my thinking shifted into this way too. I only hung out with certain people because they had a spot where we could smoke up, or have cars so we could get around town pick up some bud roll up and go on blunt rides. It was all good but it was not real it was a waste of time, money that I could have spent with the people who love me unconditionally not for the materialistic things or for the amount of drugs I had. I failed to be honest about this issue and I kept living this fake life.

Another time I failed to be honest with my cousin and I believe that has affected our relationship negatively. I went with my cousin because he needed to find a suit for his sister's wedding. I was in high school at the time and had not worn too many suits at that age. My cousin tried on a suit which unknowing to me fit him loose and made him look like a mobster. I didn't think much about it because it was a great suit and told him it looks good, instead of telling him hey man I don't have much experience with suits you should ask one of the workers at the store for help. I believe if I would have been honest and transparent about my lack of knowledge he would have not had to hear from others that he should have gone a suit that was more fitted, he would have respected my advice and honesty.

Being honest with others will help you become a role model for others you can help others make positive changes in their lives, they just haven't seen the benefits of change and honesty. However you are working on yourself and others will see your progress and come to you for advice and that will be your opportunity to enlighten and help others, refer them to this article or share with them what you know. 

Being a role model for others will help you build long-term Purpose Driven relationships that are mutually benefiting. others will feel that you are a person who they can trust and depend on. Whether it is your family or peers at work or members of your community, others would look up to you and see the benefits. Inspiring others to be honest will cause a domino effect to your team, and even your family and you can all make positive changes in order to become more successful. Allowing you to achieve more together and find more joy and happiness from the experiences in life.

Being honest not only with myself but others has opened doors and new opportunities that were not available for me before. Being honest about my drug addictions has allowed me to connect with others who have had trouble with the same issues and learn new ways to cope with issues. Although they are all different and have their own stories, there are so many similarities, much more similarities than differences. Being honest to myself has allowed me to surround myself with even more people who support and love me and want to see me succeed in life. Being honest about my problems has allowed me to find others who will help me stay away from my triggers for using again and I strive to help people in return. This has opened so many doors and avenues for me to reach my goals and achieve success. Instead of using drugs I now have many alternative positive activities I enjoy doing such as swimming, biking, reading, learning, traveling.