Hard Truths

Saying what’s better left unsaid

We often think things about people in our lives, even people we like and especially about people we love, that are not always flattering thoughts. Some of the people in our lives drink too much, don’t save their money, leave a job or take a job for reasons that are beyond us, and generally live parts of their lives in a way which leaves us shaking our heads ever so slightly.

None of this means you do not care for the person, or never have any reason to celebrate their accomplishments. Nor are these thoughts two-faced, at least not if you willing to give the person their due.

Hard truths are, however, hardest heard when the person says what others have left unsaid.

I do not have children, and frankly would have made a terribly unprepared parent. I am, at best, okay in my profession. I don’t claim to know much about anything, and there are plenty of people who not only want nothing to do with me but may someday read my obituary and grin (assuming I bother with an obit.; as that would be akin to expecting a remembrance which I neither want nor need).

To be the one to say what others have thought becomes a Faux pas the likes of which many around you will be profoundly uncomfortable with.

I’m not sure why this should be? Are we that entrenched in showing our best selves on social media that we can’t even fathom that a person could look in the mirror and acknowledge their short comings? When is admitting our faults acceptable rather than a cry for help and counseling?

The plethora of inspirational sayings on social media that you are ‘doing your best’, are ‘enough the way you are’, may be necessary, from time-to-time, to overcome the even larger plethora of keyboard trolls ready to pick apart your flaws over every minor disagreement, but at some point, the two extremes seem to cancel each other out. Eventually the overly positive and overtly negative must give way to the truth.

If we can’t admit our own truths, however hard these unsaid truths may be, then we leave it up to others to narrate our lives. Ask yourself, truly ask yourself, who do you want to narrate your life, and what do you want that narrative to be?