5 Benefits of Being Brutally Honest
Once you understand what honesty can do for you, being “yourself” in all circumstances becomes so much easier. If not the only viable option.
In the course of our lives, we all meet this person one day or another. I’m talking about the person who dares to say anything. Do anything. Display any emotion.
There are people who naturally express out loud what we all think in our heads. They communicate openly about their feeling, without having a bit of consideration for what we are going to think or feel. They are ready to lose almost anything for the simple sake of being themselves.
An attractive man at the bar? She goes and talks to him. An unbearable colleague at the office? He blows him off.
He falls in love a little too quickly… Never mind, he tells her. We’ll see what happens. She doesn’t agree with the opinion of her superior but who cares, she confronts him.
These people are brutally honest, towards themselves and others. They seem to have no fear of judgment or vulnerability. They often hurt or even shock us.
Take a few seconds and think hard about this description. I’m sure you will find someone in your life who fits it.
How do they make you feel?
Sometimes we love them. Other times we hate them. But one thing is for sure: these people carry an aura of freedom and authenticity that is hard to match.
They look like they are living to their full potential. Without complex. Without wasting time.
We admire them and yet, when it comes to having the same attitude, we often find ourselves stuck. Unable to act. Frustrated.
At first glance, the concept of honesty seems rather simple. All you have to do is tell the truth, right? So how do we justify manipulating the truth in certain situations? If being honest makes life so simple, why do we deliberately choose to complicate things?
Because in order to be honest, you have to face a certain amount of adversity.
In a society that consistently promotes more pleasure and less suffering, you are programmed to avoid being perfectly honest, because it can often put you in uncomfortable positions:
- You take the risk of looking dumb and vulnerable
- Sometimes you make people feel uncomfortable or hurt them
- It might be hard for you to make a good first impression
- You may be perceived as insensitive or arrogant
- You may feel misunderstood or lonely
To avoid all that, you end up adopting an attitude of kindness. You become an expert in “white lies”.
Your friend asks you what you think of her new dress? “Soooo pretty”, even though it doesn’t really fit her. You don’t want to hurt her.
Your colleague makes the same mistakes over and over again? You complain behind his back while telling him that he is doing a great job. Come on, he’s a good guy.
The problem with white lies is that they look harmless. So they get you used to a behavior that can quickly spread to the important parts of your life.
Suddenly you find yourself stuck in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy for years, only to avoid hurting someone. You’re constantly being stepped on for fear of upsetting your boss or co-workers.
But being honest isn’t being an asshole and just throwing everything out of your mind.
It’s actually quite the opposite.
It’s being willing to look like an asshole even though you’re acting in good faith. It’s putting a higher purpose (like truth, justice, or your dignity) ahead of your short-term emotions.
It’s risking your comfort for something more important.
Where should honesty begin and end?
Confucius, the famous Chinese philosopher, used to define things by what they are not. In that sense, the simplest way to define honesty is the absence of lies in your words and actions. It means telling the truth and acting according to it.
However, we often stumble over the question: what should be said and what should not?
This is a legitimate question. To answer it, let’s have a look at the following quote:
“Honesty does not consist in saying everything you think, but rather in thinking everything you say.” — Unknown source
It is about consciously choosing not to hide your thoughts and emotions from others. And to the question “how do I know if I should speak my mind when nobody asks for it”, my answer may disappoint you:
You already know it.
If you are honest with yourself, you know when something needs to be said or not. If you listen to yourself, you know exactly why you want to say it.
If you’re doing it to get attention, to tease the other person, to get something from them. Or if, on the contrary, it is because you really have something important to say.
Because in order to be honest with others, first, you need to be honest with yourself.
These two things are extremely related and influence each other:
- By acknowledging your own thoughts and emotions, you will find it easier to interact honestly with others.
- By not being honest with others, you will tend to get trapped in your own lies.
At this point, you may be asking yourself what’s the point of doing all these sacrifices? What are the benefits of being completely honest?
Let me sum them up for you in five points below.
1. Prevents problems
Being consistently honest allows you to express yourself rationally, without letting your emotions silently accumulate inside you.
In fact, many of the problems in your relationships are due to conversations you didn’t have over time.
One little lie leads to another and you suddenly feel completely disconnected from a person. Or even from your own emotions. You don’t know whether you love them, don’t love them, or even how to behave around them.
One day it all bursts out. You end up stabbing your roommate 12 times in the back because he forgot to flush the toilet.
What happens is that your emotions don’t just go away because you decide to avoid them. Instead, they build up inside you and become more and more obstructive.
Like that mosquito bite that itches more and more as the day goes by, until it becomes impossible not to scratch it off. Then you attack it with your sharpest fingernails, your teeth, your friend’s teeth, the kitchen knife, and why not a chainsaw.
Similarly, you use completely irrational justifications to explode with rage against someone who, most of the time, doesn’t understand your reaction. Or why you’re holding a chainsaw in your hands.
You don’t blame them for not flushing, but for all the times your roommate has ignored you, lied to you, or humiliated you. You subconsciously justify your frustration by the not-flushing-the-toilet-stuff.
An honest attitude allows you to get to the root of your frustration. It makes you feel lighter all the time.
Brutal honesty solves problems before they arise.
2. Inspires trust
Just as an honest attitude makes you more resilient, it can also make you incredibly vulnerable.
Being honest also means saying “I love you” at the risk of not being loved back. It’s admitting that you suck at something and asking for help. Expressing an opinion that may offend your friend.
It’s making a joke, knowing that it may not be funny. Sitting at a table full of strangers. Talking openly to your sexual partner about your insecurities.
Vulnerability is to be willing to put yourself in a position where you may be rejected, humiliated, or hurt. Strangely enough, it is this attitude that inspires a human being to trust you.
Exposing yourself to these risks shows that you are trustworthy because you are willing to sacrifice a lot (sometimes the whole relationship) just for the sake of being authentic.
If they see that you are actively talking about the most uncomfortable things, people can sometimes resent you emotionally. But late at night, before they fall asleep, they most likely think to themselves: “I can really trust this person. If X (you) is willing to talk openly about the things that make us feel this bad, that means I probably can trust X on everything else”.
Vulnerability leads to more vulnerability
We all appreciate it when others are honest with us, but asking for honesty is unproductive. The only way to get someone to be honest with you is by making the first step.
We’ve all experienced that moment when the simple act of opening up to a person causes an avalanche of confessions, each one deeper than the previous one.
And here we are, barefoot on the grass, looking at the stars and talking about our favorite movies, or how our parents’ education has affected our personalities. And that goes on and on until 3 in the morning.
When a person sees that you are ready to be vulnerable or even ridiculous, chances are they will open up too. They feel comfortable being vulnerable in your presence because you are already being in theirs.
This is the exact moment when you go from having a boring, shallow conversation to opening up about your dreams, passions, fears, and weirdest ideas.
This level of connection with someone requires vulnerability.
The amazing thing about this attitude is that it actually makes you stronger. Exposing your weaknesses in the eyes of others is like taking away all the power they have over you. It is embracing who you really are with confidence, without any shame for your imperfections.
Being completely honest can make you feel vulnerable at times, but this is exactly what inspires the trust and respect of others.
3. Helps people around you
Everybody needs an asshole in their life.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m more than grateful for all the times an asshole told me the harsh truth I needed to hear.
An asshole is willing to hurt the feelings of others, even to be hated if necessary. Whether it’s for the good of someone, or for the common good.
The pill is hard to swallow, but it clearly accelerates the healing and development process. We even often end up thanking our favorite little asshole, because we all need our fair share of pain and discomfort in order to grow.
Kindness, when expressed in the form of hypocrisy, only locks us into our mediocrity. It reassures us. Telling us that “it’s going to be okay”, or treating us as victims. Convincing us that it’s other people’s fault if we feel bad. But this is not true.
That’s where the asshole comes in. He is necessary because he kicks you out of your comfort zone when you are not capable of doing it yourself.
He’s that slightly violent uncle who used to throw you into the pool when you didn’t dare to jump as a child. How cold the water was at the time. But at the end of the day, it’s this uncle that helped you learn how to swim.
The reason there are so few of them is always the same: the adversity that comes with honesty. The tension inside you when you feel the urge to say something uncomfortable.
I honestly believe that the world would be a better place if there were a few more assholes among us. But it’s not enough just to be an asshole. You have to be a good asshole.
A good asshole is one who sacrifices his own comfort and the comfort of others, not for his own personal interest, but for a greater cause. The one who is willing to be hated or to hurt feelings in order to do good.
The good asshole is the uncle who throws you into cold water, gives you a buoy, and then jumps in to swim with you.
If you want to become one of them, you have to get used to feeling this discomfort from time to time. When you feel the need to say something, just go ahead and say it without overthinking.
It will be hard in the beginning. But as people start to thank you for it, you’ll gain confidence. Strangely enough, non-assholes will soon start thanking you, and they may even rely on you to say what needs to be said. To do what needs to be done.
The more you do it, the more you will get positive feedback, the more you will feel confident to be brutally honest. You’ll find that people will talk to you more easily about their issues because they know they can count on you to throw them in cold water.
A completely honest attitude will put you in a better position to help others.
4. Boosts your self-confidence
So far, I have mostly talked about the effects of being honest with other people. Here, I would like to discuss the effects of being perfectly honest with yourself.
Being true to yourself means not worrying about pleasing others. Not living by someone else’s standards. Acting naturally, according to your own rules. Uncompromising.
To talk about this concept, I decided to mention Steve Jobs. Whether you like his company or not, you have to admit that the guy was charismatic as hell.
During his famous speech at Stanford University’s graduation, Apple’s co-founder expressed the following words:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
What this all means is that you can never predict the future, or even understand why things are the way they are. Only after the events can you know which decisions were the right ones, or why it was necessary to take this or that action.
Only when you look back can you understand what got you where you need to be.
You may have lost a friend, or broken up with the person you thought you loved. You may have lost your job, or compromised your family’s approval. You may have been rejected, or you may have simply failed.
But you did the right thing. And if you have faith, you’ll soon understand why it all happened.
The truth is that there are no good or bad decisions per se. All your decisions do is closing a set of possibilities, to open a new spectrum of opportunities that you are free to seize.
What we call “good” and “bad” is nothing more than your judgment of the facts at a given time. Based on the currently available data.
But who knows what’s still to come?
Later in his speech, Steve says that when he was young, after just a few months at university, he decided to drop out. His parents had dedicated their lives to pay for his education. And then he threw it all away.
It seemed like a terrible decision at the time. But when he no longer needed to take the compulsory courses, Steve seized the opportunity to drop in classes that really interested him. One of them was a calligraphy class.
At the time, this had no practical application in his life whatsoever. But ten years later, when Apple designed the very first Macintosh, that decision made all the difference.
If he hadn’t dropped out of school, Steve probably never would have studied calligraphy. Nor would he have created the most successful company of all time. And you probably wouldn’t be reading this on such a beautiful (and expensive) computer today.
“In the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat. There is only movement.” — Paulo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
What I’m trying to say is that you can only evaluate your decisions after the story is over. In this configuration, it seems impossible to cling to anything but the truth. I’m talking about trusting the process. Following your intuition. Saying what needs to be said. Doing what needs to be done.
Focus only on what you control, be true to your values, and do your best. You have to be able to put the truth above control and your emotions.
Once armed with such confidence, you will be able to be truly honest with yourself and others, regardless of the anticipated outcome. Adversity will no longer scare you because you know you are saying and doing the right thing.
Being completely honest with yourself will help you find the courage to make hard decisions.
5. Helps you sleep well at night
In my experience, the key to being as honest as possible is to understand that in the end, this attitude always ends up making us feel good.
There is a tradeoff between the short-term discomfort and the long-term emotional stability that comes with being honest with yourself and others. You sacrifice a little bit of your comfort every day for a generally more peaceful life.
Being honest becomes a habit that will allow you to go to bed at night with a clear mind.
- You care less about the judgment of others
- You feel authentic and in line with your values
- You no longer carry the weight of other people’s emotions
- Your self-esteem and self-confidence are enhanced
- You feel free from all regrets and frustrations
- You are surrounded by people who truly appreciate and respect you
This realization will gradually make honesty easier to exercise. The tiny daily doses of discomfort will become less and less painful. Because you will know that they are worth it.
You will be ready to face adversity because it will all make sense.
The reason why we manipulate the truth is to avoid suffering.
We believe it’s okay to lie to protect someone, for “their own good”, or to prevent them from suffering. But when does the lying stop? Who can judge when it is good or bad to manipulate someone?
Whether you like it or not, lying or intentionally hiding the truth always implies manipulating someone’s perception for your own interest.
Even when you lie to yourself.
Lying to yourself is basically manipulating your own perception to avoid suffering in the face of reality.
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity always at the same time as an end, and never simply as a means.” — Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
Trust the truth more than you trust your own judgment. In the short term, you may lose something you thought you needed (your comfort, your partner, your job, your studies, your popularity, etc).
But if you are honest with yourself and others, you will soon realize that the truth often guides you better than you do yourself.
As Steve used to say, you have to trust in something — your instinct, your destiny, your karma, the Universe, God, whatever. It will take you to wonderful places.
Often more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.
