essay on importance of honesty in our lives

12 Reasons Why Honesty Is Important In Life

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woman with one hand on her heart and the other in the air illustrating honesty

Honesty is important. That’s a given, right?

Not everyone seems to think so. Lies, deception, and the concealment of truth are commonplace.

But when you actually start to examine the case for honesty, you realize that it’s a far better option than the alternative.

So, here are 12 good reasons why the value of honesty is beyond measure.

1. It underpins trust in a relationship.

Whether you’re dealing with a partner, a friend, a family member, or a colleague, when you are honest with that person, they have a reason to trust you.

If they know that you are a person of honesty and integrity, they won’t need to question what you have to say or look for the underlying motives behind your actions.

They know that you are a straight up kind of person who says what they mean and does what they say.

Compare that to the opposite approach of untruths and half truths which erode trust away, either little by little or all at once.

2. It is easier to understand.

When you are clear in what you truly think or believe, there is no grey area for confusion to grow in.

The other person doesn’t have to second guess what you really mean.

And with clarity comes a better understanding of your expectations of them, should you have any.

They know what you would actually like them to do rather than trying to infer this from the mixed messages you may give when you aren’t being totally honest.

3. You are more likely to get what you want.

The previous point about clarity means that you are more likely to get the end result you are hoping for.

Oftentimes, we conceal our true desires or preferences behind the curtain of “sure” and “fine” and “okay” rather than speak our truth.

But when we are completely honest with ourselves and others, we encourage the right actions that lead to what we want.

When we speak up, the other person is more likely to listen. You may not get your way every time because compromises must often be made, but at least you’ll get your way sometimes or a middle ground will be reached that suits you both.

And being honest is not in any way manipulating people into doing what you want. It’s the complete opposite – it is being transparent and open so that others can take your views and feelings into consideration.

4. It makes space for others to be vulnerable.

Speaking of being open, the great thing about being honest is that it encourages others to be honest too.

And in terms of relationships with other people, openness gives rise to vulnerability and vulnerability gives rise to genuine connection.

Honesty is attractive in that sense because it allows the other person to drop the mask that they may feel they need to wear in life. They are free to be who they are in the knowledge that honesty is rewarded in your company.

5. It shows respect.

When we are honest with someone, we are respecting the fact that they deserve to know the truth.

Not only that, we are respecting the fact that they can handle the truth and don’t need to be told lies just because the truth may be difficult to hear.

Consider the alternative which is to deceive or conceal things from others. That is the very opposite of respect. It communicates that you think you know best what the other person ought to hear, when that’s not your place to say.

6. It almost always leads to the best outcomes in the long run.

Having just mentioned a person’s ability to handle the truth, it is worth pointing out that honesty is not always an easy thing to hear.

It can be difficult to listen to your partner who is telling you that they don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore. Or a friend who says they think you need professional help for a drinking problem.

Sometimes we lie to ourselves so that we don’t have to face the harsh reality of our situation, and someone else being honest with us can reveal important things we need to address.

Whilst this can sting at the time, it can put us on a different path to someplace better than where we’re currently headed, whether that be a healthier relationship or getting sober.

7. It is simple.

Telling the truth is simple. There is no need to remember what you lied about and to whom. You can be confident that you have said what was true (at least, from your perspective) in the moment you said it.

Now, don’t confuse simple with easy. Being honest is not always easy. In fact, it can often be difficult and uncomfortable when you are telling someone something they might not want to hear.

But because there is no ambiguity in your message, there is little confusion when receiving it. And that makes things much simpler in the long run.

8. It is better for your mental health / inner peace.

Lying doesn’t come easily for most people. When you deceive others, it can feel like you are going against your values or who you want to be as a person.

Not only that, but as soon as you lie, you will live with the fear of that lie being discovered. That’s a mentally exhausting thing.

Honesty, though not always easy, doesn’t carry such burdens. Of course, you may feel slightly bad if you have to tell someone an uncomfortable truth, but that won’t last long.

Being honest means you can rest easy knowing that you have been true to yourself and done what you thought was best in a given situation. And authenticity is a great way to live.

9. It is good for your self-esteem.

Continuing on the mental health benefits of honesty, it helps to make you feel good about yourself.

Your self-esteem is essentially how much you like yourself as a person, and when you are honest, it is a lot easier to like yourself.

Not only that, but when you realize that people like you for who you are and for the honesty you bring, rather than a mask you put on in front of others, it’s empowering.

You can be you, be honest, and still be liked. Maybe not by everyone, but by enough people who matter.

10. It is a demonstration of your character.

There are many other personality traits other than honesty, but positive traits tend to occur together as part of a good character.

When you are honest, it will communicate that you are most likely kind, compassionate, hard working, and reliable.

Consider a liar, on the other hand. They might be tainted with the brush of someone who would cheat or steal or manipulate. Not traits you want to be associated with.

11. It is hard to challenge.

When you aren’t entirely honest with others in what you want, it allows them to challenge you and try to persuade you to their way of thinking.

But when you are honest with someone, they will find it difficult to find the weakness in what you are saying.

For example, if someone asks if you’d like to do something with them and you don’t want to, it is better to state that with crystal clarity rather than say, “Maybe another time.”

Because if your answer isn’t clear, the other person will probably try to twist your arm into doing the thing that you don’t want to do

12. It keeps toxic people away.

Some people live in the shadows of misdirection, concealment, coercion, and outright lies.

Those sorts of people find it hard to ply their toxic trade with those who are honest with themselves and honest with others.

Deception and honesty do not exist well together in the same space, so if you are honest, toxic people are more likely to look elsewhere to get what they want.

About The Author

essay on importance of honesty in our lives

Steve Phillips-Waller is the founder and editor of A Conscious Rethink. He has written extensively on the topics of life, relationships, and mental health for more than 8 years.

An honesty box on Dartmoor, England. Photo by Loop/Getty

The virtue of honesty requires more than just telling the truth

by Christian B Miller + BIO

Listen to this Idea.

Honesty has fallen out of fashion, yet it is essential to self-improvement. How can we cultivate this neglected virtue?

There is little controversy that honesty is a virtue. It is an excellence of character. It also promotes trust, fosters healthy relationships, strengthens organisations and societies, and prevents harm.

Sadly, though, honesty has gone missing in recent decades. It is largely absent from academic research. It seems to be rare in society. And it is not commonly found in discussions of how to become a better person.

What is honesty? How is honesty related to integrity, courage and tact? Is it always best to be honest? What are the ways of failing to be honest? These are important questions, but you will be hard pressed to find discussions of them among scholars. In my field of philosophy, for instance, outside of the work of my own team, there have been only two articles on honesty published in the past 50 years .

So what is honesty? It is a character trait that leads us to think, feel and act in honest ways. Let’s focus on the acting for a moment. Naturally, honesty stands in contrast to lying. But it is much broader in scope than that. It also is opposed to cheating, stealing, promise breaking, misleading, bullshitting, hypocrisy, self-deception, and still other forms of wrongdoing. It works against all of them, and so is extremely broad and impactful in scope.

What do all these behaviours have in common? What is at the core of honesty that enables it to cover so much moral ground? The answer, I think, is that honest behaviour is a matter of not intentionally distorting the facts as the honest person sees them.

Consider a student who lies about his grades to his parents. He is misrepresenting his academic performance on purpose to his parents. Or consider an athlete who knowingly uses a banned substance. She is mispresenting her performance as being due to her own efforts, rather than in part to the contribution of the substance.

Honest behaviour is tied to how a person sees the world, to the facts as subjectively understood. If someone genuinely believes the Earth is flat, then, when he reports that belief to a friend, he is being honest, even though the statement is false. Were he to say that the Earth is round, he would be acting dishonestly, even though the statement is true.

If the only reason why the shopkeeper doesn’t cheat his customers is that he is worried about losing business, then he is doing the right thing for the wrong reason

That’s a bit about honest behaviour. How about motivation? In order to be a virtuous person, it is not enough just to act well. One’s heart behind the action matters too. Honesty is no exception. Telling the truth, even if one is reliable in doing so, won’t be an expression of the virtue of honesty if it is done just to make a good impression on others, or to avoid getting punished, or to secure rewards in the afterlife.

Indeed, in my view, any self-interested motive isn’t going to count as a virtuous motive for honesty. The philosopher Immanuel Kant made a similar observation with his example of the shopkeeper who charges fair prices even when he has a chance to overcharge certain customers. Kant claims that if the only reason why the shopkeeper doesn’t cheat his customers is that he is worried about losing business, if he were to be found out, then this would be a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. The same point applies for any other self-interested reason.

What would count as a right reason for honest behaviour, then? A variety of other motives, including:

loving motives (eg, ‘because I care about you’)
justice motives (eg, ‘because it would be unfair if I cheated on the test’)
friendship motives (eg, ‘because he’s my friend’)
dutiful motives (eg, ‘because it was the right thing to do’)
honesty motives (eg, ‘because it would be honest’)

If someone tells the truth for any of these reasons, it is hard to fault the person’s character. But they are rather different reasons. I think we should be pluralists here, and allow any or all of these to count as what could motivate an honest person to act.

There is much more to say about the contours of this virtue. But already I have said more than most have in a long while.

Here is another way that the virtue of honesty has gone missing – it seems to be rarely possessed by people today. You might conclude this from the nightly news or from your own lived experience. But I am especially interested in what can be concluded from empirical research in psychology and behavioural economics. In a variety of different types of experiments – using die rolls, coin flips, self-graded exams, and other measures of honest behaviour – participants regularly exhibit a pattern of behaviour that does not fit with our expectations of an honest person.

For instance, in a commonly used experimental set-up for assessing cheating, participants are given a 20-problem maths test, and are told that they will be paid for every answer they get right. In a study by Lisa Shu and colleagues, this was $0.50. In the control condition, there was no opportunity to cheat, and participants scored a 7.97 out of 20. In the experimental condition, participants got to grade the test themselves and shred their materials. Given the freedom to cheat if they wanted to, participants ‘scored’ a 13.22 out of 20. That’s a big difference.

As in many areas of psychology, some cheating studies have failed to be replicated

To take another example, online participants in a study by Christopher Bryan and colleagues had to flip a coin 10 times , knowing they would be paid $1 for each heads. The average ‘performance’ was 6.31 heads , well above chance. Even when another group of participants was warned, ‘Please don’t cheat and report that one or more of your coin flips landed heads when it really landed tails! Even a small amount of cheating would undermine the study,’ the average was still 6.22 in that group.

How do these findings line up with our expectations about honesty? A person who is honest will not cheat in situations where she is a free and willing participant and the relevant rules are fair and appropriate, even if by cheating she is assured of acquiring some benefit for herself. That’s what you might expect of an honest person, but it’s not what we see happening in these results.

Of course, these are only two examples. To draw any conclusions about character from just a few results such as these would be very unwise. Fortunately there are dozens and dozens of additional findings that I have reviewed elsewhere , including many more studies using shredder and coin-flip paradigms. The important point here is not what any one study shows, but rather what the patterns of behaviour look like in general and whether they align with our expectations for honesty.

This is also relevant to recent worries about the replication crisis and about fraudulent data. As in many areas of psychology, some cheating studies have failed to be replicated. For instance, a well-known shredder study initially found that recalling the Ten Commandments was effective in reducing cheating, but this result did not hold up in an attempted replication with many more participants from 19 separate labs. Furthermore, it was well documented that an influential study, which purported to show that insurance customers were more honest in their mileage reports if they signed at the top of a form rather than the bottom, was fraudulent.

Again, this is why it is so important to not rely on just a few studies when trying to think about how honest people tend to be. It is the broader patterns that hopefully tell a reliable story.

Finally, this story is about what the majority of people tend to be like. It is based on average performances. But averages can cover up exceptional behaviour. So we may have a bell curve, with some people who are highly honest and others who are highly dishonest, while the rest of us are somewhere in the middle. Furthermore, the story should be taken to apply, in the first instance, only to inhabitants of North America and Europe, since they tend to be the participants in the existing studies. The story may apply more broadly, but we don’t have nearly enough research yet to say.

Assuming that many of us are not honest people in a variety of circumstances, and assuming that honesty is an important virtue that we should cultivate in ourselves and others, it is important to take practical steps to do so. And here is a third place where the virtue of honesty has gone missing. For very little has been said about strategies for growing in honesty, and about testing those strategies to see if they are really successful.

In my own classes, we all read aloud the honour code before the students sign it and begin their exam

Here are three preliminary suggestions that might be fruitful, but that also need empirical confirmation. One is seeking out and better understanding exemplars of honesty. These can be historical exemplars such as Abraham Lincoln, or contemporaries such as a family member, friend, co-worker or community leader. Admiring role models for their honesty can lead to a desire to emulate those people, to make our own character better reflect the exemplars’ character. Sustained engagement with the exemplars can typically be more effective than one-time interactions, and relatable and attainable exemplars can have a greater impact than their opposites.

Another suggestion is to have regular moral reminders of honesty in our lives. Such reminders can make our moral norms salient, such that they more actively work against a desire to cheat, lie or steal. Honesty reminders can take a wide variety of forms, including diaries, readings, signs and emails. There can also be institutional reminders, which we encounter at work or school. One such moral reminder in many schools is an honour code, which students have to sign before taking a test. And there is some very preliminary experimental evidence that such a reminder can be effective in preventing cheating. Returning to Shu’s research, she and her colleagues also had groups of participants take the maths test after reading or signing an honour code. When there was an opportunity to cheat, the honour code made a difference: participants who did not read the honour code gave themselves an average score of 13.09 out of 20; those who only read the honour code scored 10.05; while those who both read and signed the honour code scored 7.91 (a realistic score for the test, suggesting that they did not cheat at all). In my own classes, we all read aloud the honour code before the students sign it and begin their exam.

A final suggestion is to work against our desire to cheat, a desire that can be especially powerful when we think we can get away with cheating, and benefit in the process. Such a desire seems to be at work in studies such as those by Shu and Bryan, mentioned earlier, and introspectively we can all recognise moments in our lives when it has influenced us as well. One straightforward way to try to reign it in is to increase the policing of cheating and impose harsher penalties on those found guilty. For instance, with the move in education towards take-home exams during the COVID-19 pandemic, computer surveillance of students taking those exams has become a big business, although not without giving rise to a number of moral and psychological concerns.

Increased policing and punishment for cheating might be effective in curbing dishonest behaviour, although that, too, is an empirical claim that needs further study. But, even if it does, that’s not enough to foster the virtue of honesty. As I said earlier, motivation matters too. Here, the motivation for not cheating would be punishment avoidance, and that is a purely self-interested motivation. While I tried to be very ecumenical about what can count as an honest motivation, this is one that’s not going to make it on the list.

Instead, the desire to cheat could be diminished in a more virtuous manner by fostering other virtues alongside honesty, such as friendship and love. If someone is genuinely my friend, I want what’s best for that person, even if it is at the expense of my own self-interest. Similarly, if I love others and care deeply for them, then I am concerned about their own good. The deeper the friendship and love, the less likely it is that we would be dishonest with others for our own gain.

This article draws on Christian B Miller’s book Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue (2021), with permission from Oxford University Press.

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Essay on the importance of honesty in our lives

Honesty is one of the important values one should have in life. A person who is honest will be appreciated and respected by many in this world. The various benefits of honesty are discussed in this essay

Introduction

Role of parents and teachers, benefits of honesty.

A beautiful article is given by the author. In general, honesty means that a person should perform his duties with transparency and honesty, but in actuality, it is not limited to duties only. An honest person not only keeps honesty towards his work and responsibility but is also honest with himself. People have their own principles of life and when we maintain ourselves with those principles as well as live life by being aware of our duties, then there is honesty. Honesty plays an important role in building the character of a person, not only in a particular profession but also in daily life, a student also gets success only when he is honest about his studies, that is, he is not studying for show but towards studies. Similarly, if a woman who is a housewife also does her household work honestly and diligently, then the results are satisfying. It simply means that honesty is a quality that must be definitely in human beings and the seed of this honesty should be sown in the minds of children from childhood so that the wave of honesty flows in the world forever.

Honesty is the best policy goes the popular saying, and it is the fact that those who are honest in their approach need not fear nor plan for any eventuality because their life is the open book without any remarks or complaints and Honesty alone got then name and fame. Honesty here is also having vast meaning and that need to be explained. That the honest person will not allow others to deviate from the fact and the reality and this is most important trait through which the society can be changed to vast extent. Honesty is always guided through our own set principles to which we must adhere always. An honest person is always valued in the society and he is also believed. And when a honest person recommends some one for the job or the task, the recommendation is accepted without any question asked because the honest person character plays an important role. That is the reason being so when we are approaching for a new job or seeking change of job the interviewer would ask for one great person name to whom you are known and they get the iota of your personality for sure.

Honesty is an important virtue of a human being. But, nowadays it is very difficult to find within any person. A very famous proverb" Those persons are honest who did not get the opportunity in life". It means honesty is the result of a lack of opportunity in modern times. But, It is not completely true. Even today few people are there who do their duty with honesty. Honest starts from home and since childhood, we should get learned our children about honesty. Honest develops many qualities within a person. An honest person proves brave in handling problems in life. They are generally disciplined and punctual. Honest play a big role in getting success in life. Honesty leads a happy and successful life.

Honesty is not just about speaking the truth. Honesty is also about being one's authentic self. It cannot be practiced outside if it isn't practiced inside. A person who cannot be honest with oneself cannot present his truth to the outside world. A person cannot be true to himself if his thoughts, words and actions are unaligned. If he is thinking in one direction, but his words and actions are going in a different direction then it means that he is not authentic to the world and himself. To make honesty a trait, one has to cultivate the habit of expressing one's thoughts, words and actions in a perfectly aligned order. People are usually scared to express themselves honestly. They feel that their words and actions should be such that they should not hurt another person. Consequently, they will end up saying something or doing something that goes against their honest opinions about that particular situation or another person. Instead of doing better, they end up creating turbulence in the outer world. It is because the words or act was carried out based on dishonesty. When we are honest, people respect us for who we are. It is because everyone likes a genuine person. No matter how different we are from others, we express ourselves genuinely, that is what is most attractive. We do not fear to express ourselves. As our intention was not ill, we will never hurt anyone outside, regardless of our different opinions about the subject or the other person. When honesty is the real intention, any relationship formed on its basis will turn out to be perfect and strong. Our honesty attracts others who have the same values. Others around us will also shed their old beliefs and adopt honesty in their lives. Thus, authentic loving relationships will be formed easily.

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The Honest Truth:

March 12, 2023

Character Lab

Eranda Jayawickreme, the Harold W. Tribble Professor of Psychology and a senior research fellow at the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University, talked to us about what parents and teachers should know about honesty . Here are a few highlights:

Let’s start with the basics. Why is honesty so important?

For thousands of years, honesty has been held up as a really important character trait by different philosophical traditions, religious traditions, across multiple cultures. A second, more practical, reason for caring about honesty is that if we want to get things done in the world, we need to form trusting relationships. People need to be able to take what we say at face value. And that has implications for forming good partnerships and marriages and being an active and successful participant in social life. So there are real consequences to being honest or dishonest.

A third reason is that we desire honesty. My colleagues and I asked people in a study a few years ago, what are the characteristics of someone you respect, someone you like? The number one pick is honesty. A lot of other traits are important, like being compassionate and being fair. But honesty comes out on top.

If everyone thinks honesty is important, why is it so hard?

It’s interesting, right? What’s most distinctive about honesty is that, in some cases, people lie because there’s tension with another action that also seems moral. For example, when you’re giving feedback to your child or a student, you want to be honest because otherwise, they aren’t going to learn. But you also want to be mindful of their self-esteem, so you have the motivation to be kind and compassionate. You want to find a balance between benevolence and honesty.

There’s also the famous philosophical case of the “Nazi at the door.” Imagine this scenario: You’re hiding people, and Nazi soldiers knock on your door and ask, “Are you hiding people?” What do you do? The moral thing to do is to lie, but then you’re lying. So how do you resolve that paradox? You have these situations where being honest may not be the right thing to do. Thankfully, many of us don’t have to deal with these sorts of moral dilemmas often.

What do you think researchers know about honesty that most people get wrong?

We all see these high-profile instances of people cheating or lying that make the news. A classic example is Bernie Madoff, who ran a Ponzi scheme and defrauded people. Or Tiger Woods, with his history of marital infidelity. When people read news stories like these, they assume that because these famous figures are lying, you can’t trust people. And that belief can be corrosive. If you go around the world thinking that most people will not be truthful with you, you’re going to be distrustful. It’s going to prevent you from fostering human connection, real human bonds. But in our research, we’re finding that most people are honest in their everyday life.

A skeptic might say that people will tell researchers they’re honest just to make themselves look good.

In our recent research, we’ve been using experience sampling methods—we can send people messages and ask them how honest they are being right now. And there are certain contexts where people are more willing to say they’ve been dishonest. I think that’s really cool because it shows that people are actually willing to acknowledge that, sometimes, they engage in behavior that could be considered immoral.

For example, if you ask people, “In the last hour or so, were you in a situation where you had to deliver unpleasant news or where you were motivated to avoid something you didn’t want to do?” When you ask people whether they were in a specific situation like that, some people are happy to say, “Yes, I was in that situation, and no, I didn’t tell the truth.” But research is finding that, for the most part, we’re honest with our partners. We’re honest with our friends.

Click on the citation to read the original post:

Jayawickreme, E. (2023, March 12). The Honest Truth: Everyone struggles with honesty . Character Lab. Retrieved from https://characterlab.org/tips-of-the-week/the-honest-truth/

Explore the Center for Practical Wisdom

500+ words Essay on Honesty

Honesty is a quality that plays a crucial role in our lives. It means telling the truth, being sincere, and acting with integrity. Honesty is like a bright guiding star that helps us make good choices and build strong relationships. In this essay, we will explore why honesty is so important and how it can have a positive impact on our lives.

Building Trust

Honesty is the foundation of trust. Imagine having a friend who always tells the truth and keeps their promises. You would trust them, right? Trusting someone means believing in their words and actions. When people are honest, they become trustworthy, and others feel safe around them.

Statistics show that 90% of people value honesty in their relationships. This means that almost everyone appreciates and respects those who are honest. Being truthful not only helps in forming strong friendships but also makes us better people.

Resolving Conflicts

Honesty is a powerful tool for resolving conflicts. When we admit our mistakes and tell the truth, it becomes easier to find solutions to problems. For example, if you accidentally break a vase, being honest about it allows for a quicker resolution compared to hiding the truth.

Dr. Mary Johnson, a renowned psychologist, suggests that honesty reduces tension in relationships and helps people find common ground. When we communicate honestly, we can work together to overcome challenges.

Personal Integrity

Being honest also helps us maintain our personal integrity. Integrity means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. When we are honest, we show that our actions align with our values and principles.

According to a study by the National Institute of Ethics, people who practice honesty have higher self-esteem and a stronger sense of self-worth. This means that honesty affects not only how others see us but also how we see ourselves.

Learning from Mistakes

Honesty is essential for personal growth. When we admit our mistakes, we have the chance to learn from them. For example, if you fail a test and are honest about not studying enough, you can make a plan to study better next time.

Dr. Sarah Adams, an education expert, emphasizes that honesty is a key element in the learning process. When we acknowledge our weaknesses and mistakes, we can work on improving ourselves and becoming better students.

Honesty in Society

Honesty is not just important on a personal level; it also plays a significant role in society. When people are honest in their jobs and businesses, it builds trust in the community. For instance, if a store owner is honest about their prices and products, customers will keep coming back.

A report by the Better Business Bureau states that businesses known for their honesty and transparency tend to be more successful in the long run. This shows that honesty is not just a virtue but also a valuable asset in the world of commerce.

Conclusion of Essay on Honesty

In conclusion, honesty is a precious quality that we should all embrace. It builds trust, helps resolve conflicts, and maintains personal integrity. Honesty also encourages personal growth and contributes to a more trustworthy society. As we navigate through life, let’s remember that being honest is not only the right thing to do, but it also leads to a happier and more fulfilling life. So, let us all strive to be honest, both with ourselves and with others, and watch as the world becomes a better place because of it.

Also read: The Essay on Essay: All you need to know

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Sample Essay- "The Real Meaning of Honesty"

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(Sample Definition Essay)

I think it was my mother who taught me the meaning of honesty. Not because she actually was honest, but because she lied all the time. She felt that the easiest way out of any given situation was generally the best way out. And, for her, that generally meant telling a “little white lie.” As a young child I thought it was kind of cool. And, naturally, when I would come to her with a concern or question wondering what I should do, she generally advised me to lie.

“Mom, I told Theresa that I would go over to her house, but now I would rather go to Sue’s house to play.”

“Tell Theresa you’re sick,” she would advise. And generally I did. But I didn’t seem blessed with her lack of conscience. On many painful occasions Theresa would find out that I really went to Sue’s house without her. These occasions taught me that it is more painful to be caught in a lie than it is to tell the truth in the first place. I wondered how it was possible that my mother had never learned that lesson.

I started thinking of all the lies that I’d heard her tell. I remembered the time she told someone that her favorite restaurant had closed, because she didn’t want to see them there anymore. Or the time she told Dad that she loved the lawn-mower he gave her for her birthday. Or when she claimed that our phone lines had been down when she was trying to explain why she hadn’t been in touch with a friend of hers for weeks. And what bothered me even more were all the times she had incorporated me into her lies. Like the time she told my guidance counselor that I had to miss school for exploratory surgery, when she really needed me to babysit. And it even started to bother me when someone would call for her and she would ask me to tell them that she wasn’t there.

So, I started my own personal fight against her dishonesty. When I answered the phone and it was someone my mother didn’t want to talk to, I said, “Louise, mom is here, but she doesn’t want to talk to you.” The first time I did it, I think she grounded me, but I refused to apologize. I told her that I had decided that it was wrong to lie. And the next time it happened I did the same thing. Finally, she approached me and said, “I agree that lying is not the best thing to do, but we need to find a way to be honest without being rude.” She admitted that her methods weren’t right, and I admitted that mine were a bit too extreme.

Over the past few years, the two of us have worked together to be honest- and yet kind. Honesty should mean more than not lying. It should mean speaking the truth in kindness. Though I started by trying to teach my mom the importance of honesty, I ended up gaining a deeper understanding of the meaning of the term.

What is the term that the speaker is trying to define?
Did someone teach her the meaning of the term, or did she really learn from her own experience?
Is the term defined here presented with more complex reasoning than a dictionary definition

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Honesty — An On Honesty Is The Best

An on Honesty is The Best

Categories: Ethics Honesty Trust

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Words: 587 |

Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 587 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Honesty / Honesty: A Virtue That Cannot Be Overemphasized

Honesty: A Virtue That Cannot Be Overemphasized

Category: Life , Philosophy
Topic: Honesty , Moral , Values of Life

Pages: 2 (1122 words)

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12 Reasons Why Honesty Is Important In Life

1. It underpins trust in a relationship.

2. It is easier to understand.

3. You are more likely to get what you want.

4. It makes space for others to be vulnerable.

5. It shows respect.

6. It almost always leads to the best outcomes in the long run.

7. It is simple.

8. It is better for your mental health / inner peace.

9. It is good for your self-esteem.

10. It is a demonstration of your character.

11. It is hard to challenge.

12. It keeps toxic people away.

About The Author

The virtue of honesty requires more than just telling the truth

Honesty has fallen out of fashion, yet it is essential to self-improvement. How can we cultivate this neglected virtue?

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