Call a spade a spade.
It takes both courage and wisdom to call something for what it is. But that’s where real men stands and where the elusive world peace is.
We’re all guilty.
That’s, regardless of who we are, it is difficult for us to call for something for what it is. We’ve been lying through our teeth to our children, our colleagues, bosses almost everyone around us.
It starts when we’re young and parents might say something along these lines:
“It’s bedtime!” (said 30 minutes before bedtime)
“We’ll come back another time.”
“It won’t hurt, I promise!”
And why do we do that as parents?
Maybe it’s easier to pacify our kids. Maybe it’ll help to present a reason that can never be retorted. But what we’re teaching to our children that the little bit of a lie is okays.
Then as we go to school, teachers might say something like this:
You can find more here.
The only problem is the kids will inevitably figure out the real truth anyways. And when they do, they’ll also realise why it was okays for a teacher to do that.
And the list goes on.
Eventually we find companies labelling food items with funny words like free range, organic, farm fresh. Politicians labelling policies with forward looking words such as progressive freedom, liberal & democratic policies and the right to equal opportunities.
In fact, like drug addicts, we get uncomfortable when someone makes no effort to hide the real truth instead of cowering behind the words that alludes to the truth but mean nothing like it.
Maybe we’ve been too comfortable not knowing the real deal.
Straight up — Let’s take baby steps.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
- British statesman Edmund Burke
Why is this so important?
Because this isn’t a rant about who’s on the higher moral ground. But it is the first step to building a bigger world.
The moment we’re able to make it a habit, to say something for what it is; we’ll no longer feel the need to hide. We’ll start to build courage to nip the problem while it’s still early. Gone will be the days when we hide our problems under the rug with words or stories only to find them exploding in our faces.
When we’ve built a community that is comfortable to be honest and truly open, it will be very much easier to call out a lie. A lie may not be outright, but a slight deviation. However, over a bigger quantitative action results in a bigger anomaly. Now, when a community has a strong habit of being honest, these slight deviations are more visible like a chipped tooth amidst a set of perfect white pearlies. This makes it easier for this community to identify, call out and nip those problems while it’s still small and containable.
It all begins with the single individual in a family unit. It begins with you & me. The moment we start making it a habit to have the courage to say things for what they are, no matter how small or how painful it may be; know that we’re definitely inching towards and rebuilding the community of great men and company.
