Just get honest! Or is that always the best way to go about life? Is honesty a principle that we are meant to practice in all our endeavors? Or is honesty a virtue, where the goal isn’t honesty 100% of the time, but to find a balance? We explore the concept of honesty, some of the theories about levels of honesty, what we believe the goal of honesty is, and if it’s okay to be dishonest if the intention is a positive one. We talk about how deceit is usually a negative when the lie is told with the goal of some self-gain, but lies tend to not be as bad when the goal is to help someone else. Then we take a quiz on honesty to see just how honest we are. Listen in, take the quiz with us, and share your thoughts about being honest. Join the conversation by leaving a message, emailing us at RecoverySortOf@gmail.com,  or find us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or find us on our website at www.recoverysortof.com.

Honesty Quiz

Our other Honesty episode

Nostalgia episode

Cliches part 1 episode

Work part 2 episode

Top Recovery Podcasts list

Transcript:

recovery sort of is a podcast where we discuss recovery topics from the perspective of people living in long-term recovery this podcast does not intend to represent the views of any particular group organization or fellowship the attitudes expressed are solely the opinion of its contributors be advised there may be strong language or topics of an adult nature

welcome back it’s recovery sort of i’m jason a guy who thought he was honest and i’m billy i’m a person in long-term recovery and we’re going to talk about honesty today which is uh we’ve done that once before we have an honesty episode but we decided i believe that we’re gonna try to do a spiritual principle each month this year the new 2022 i know it’s been 2022 for a few weeks now when you’re listening to this but it is fresh as we record it yeah just starting for us yeah um so we’re going to get into that some of our recap i definitely want to go back and thank everybody who’s donated to the show you can donate on our website recoverysortup.com there’s a donation tab and uh you can click right on that and and set up a donation and we appreciate that um sarah and julie who are regular monthly contributors they’ve signed up to do that every month really appreciate that sarah actually reached out to us she shared her spotify year in review with us and it is a [ _ ] ton of minutes she listened to it’s like wow almost 1500 minutes of wow thank you so much us bullshitting it’s probably more than i’ve listened to i i was like i hope it was helpful that’s i hope it wasn’t a total waste of time um and another thing we made another top list another top recovery podcast list and the the sober gratitudes podcast actually reached out to us and shared it with us um they said we were on there along with them and you can find that on i can’t read all that but at some sobriety podcasts on feedspot list and we were like number three and i was like damn that’s awesome and we got a couple of uh christmas donations which was really nice end of year christmas thing so thank you everybody has contributed and we definitely appreciate that yeah and that money goes to help people in recovery we don’t keep any of it or profit from any of it you know yeah jason has set up a way to donate that back to the recovery community so any donations or or sponsorships that we get i’ll go to helping other recovering people yeah yeah we’re not over here getting rich uh actually we just just found out that some of our donation money went to a family that i think it was a single mom in recovery didn’t have any christmas gifts for her kids like maybe she was fresh in i don’t know the whole story um but i was being told that you know some of our money helped to supply some things they needed for the kids and i don’t know warmed my heart a little bit it was it’s always nice to feel like you’re doing something yeah that’s definitely pretty cool yeah yeah so one with the honesty uh i don’t have any idea what the hell we said on our last honesty episode but i i did find it fascinating that we’re going to record this today and last night i lied i i texted my daughter something that was not true and and i was like well you know justifying it well it would be true right they haven’t said anything because they’re nice people but they would say this thing that i said they said wow here i am lying right before honesty and i so i vaguely remember the last episode on honesty and what i remember taking away from that going into that i would have said that i’m a completely honest person and when we came out of that one i realized that i was not a completely honest person and that i had some areas in my life that i was still dishonest and coming into this one i realized i think i’m okay with that that the areas that i’m not overly honest in you know like i’m okay with that i don’t know that uh any principles or you know these morals that i need to live by are like 100 all the time no matter what you’re just honest like i don’t know that i mean it’s possible to live that way but i don’t know that it’s the best way to practice that principle or any principle for that matter yeah which is fascinating and i think that might be a recurring theme i guess we’ll find out as we go through this year and do a spiritual principle each month the idea that like i’ve always considered that these are you know checked or unchecked boxes like you’re either honest or you’re not and you know my the information i’ve always been given is like you just get honest like that’s just what you do you’re honest in all cases all the time no exceptions and if you’re not you’re gonna pay the spiritual price for it and reading some information about honesty and this idea like it’s you know they talked about being honestly being a virtue and that aristotle’s view of virtues was that you were supposed to find the balance between two opposites right it’s not necessarily that like with a virtue you’re supposed to just do it or not do it it’s like finding the the middle path as buddhism would say with all these things and i i think what i realized going into this episode a little differently like i was the same way as you last time i was like yeah i’m an honest guy that’s just what i am right and i realized i wasn’t and now this time realizing just how many ways i’m not honest was what i was thinking about coming into this i mean you know and the ways that i’m totally okay with not being honest if if i think the world is messed up then i’m fine with being dishonest to make it work to my advantage right if if i had if i was seeing people who were trying to get government benefits and to me the government benefit system like disqualified them over some [ _ ] i’m totally lying and i don’t give a [ _ ] about that i’m like yeah that’s [ _ ] like [ _ ] people it’s weird so you’ve talked a little bit about your situation as a counselor and i know like with my uh health insurance it doesn’t cover couples counseling or family counseling and i’ve heard other people describe it the way you’re talking about but when my wife and i went into couples counseling it wasn’t covered and we had to pay out of pocket and i wanted you know i didn’t feel right asking them to lie like i wanted to call them and be like hey man don’t you know the scam like how come you’re not running this scam for me so you can push this through my insurance so that i can get covered for this yeah yeah i mean it’s it’s crazy that like insurance will not cover couples or families counseling in almost all cases and the fact is like it’s our couples and our families and our local communal relationships that are really the problem at the source of all these things right it’s nobody lives in a vacuum and so all these things create the environment of of the struggle and it’s much better when we can address them at that level yeah well and i found it funny that like i if if i were in that situation i would be totally okay with lying about it but i was really uncomfortable like talking to someone else about lying on my behalf like that was uncomfortable i didn’t want to ask the counselor to do that ooh is there people i i and i’m sure there are but i feel like i don’t know anybody that’s comfortable asking others to lie for them not personally or closely i mean i’ve come into contact with people but that feels weird but you haven’t had clients ask you that like hey can you no no and i would i would be less inclined to do it if they did ask if they asked you to do yes yeah it’s like why why that’s weird why are you asking me for that right like i don’t know that is interesting that when people ask you to lie it feels different but i feel better with like a wink and a nod like i want to come for individual counseling because my insurance doesn’t cover family counseling which is what i really need like wing wink no it wouldn’t feel any better it would still feel weird well and i think that’s one of the things i uh i came into when i was reading up one honesty was this idea that like most lying that we look at is bad god i’m gonna butcher the [ _ ] out of this but it was basically the idea that the lying that’s bad is when it is lying for the purpose of self gain right and so that comes into like i feel like that is someone asking me to lie for their self-gain oh yeah which doesn’t feel right to me even though i don’t have any problem lying for their game but i feel like that’s altruistic at the judgment place on yeah that’s interesting it is interesting and the other part of honesty i took away from listening before talking about this before was the honesty i understand that we or for me what i understand in recovery is the self-honesty that i need to get me through uh to cover like the nostalgia of using and and those things you know i heard you know jenny talk on the nostalgia episode about that euphoric recall and that kind of stuff like that’s where in my personal recovery honesty is kinda hyper important like i can’t diminish the consequences of my using i can’t you know minimize the the things that i lied about or or did to harm other people in i using because that helps keep that euphoric recall going right right yeah so that’s and that’s interesting so one of the things that i wanted to come into this was with the levels of honesty so i was trying to look up levels of honesty and what i found was there is no like universal levels of honesty there’s a whole lot of different theories like one was like a list of five levels and first it was me being honest with me and then me being honest with you about me and then me being honest with me about you and then me being honest with you about you and then me being honest with everything about everything which was it was an interesting list but i i couldn’t find much like i it just took it hurt my brain to kind of think more about it yeah and honesty in that perspective seems almost like love like we use this word love and we all think we have a universal understanding of what it means but that word can mean so many different things you know i love my wife i love my kids i love my dog i love ice cream you know it’s like those aren’t the same yeah they all mean different things you know i love my friends but do i love my friends the same as i love my wife and my kids that’s probably some difference there you know yeah but we use this word love and when i say i love my wife or my kids you probably think you know what i mean by when i say i love my wife and my kids because you love your wife and kids right and we all think we’re using this the same way and honesty falls into that same category for me it’s like there’s that i’ve heard it cash register honesty you know the money honesty and then there’s self-honesty and then there’s well i don’t feel good and i want to miss a day at work and i’m not really sick but is it okay to call the boss and say oh i’m not feeling so great talk to you tomorrow like that’s self-care right it’s not dishonesty and it’s like where that falls in this level of honesty or dishonesty well and something i never consider generally like when i meet a random person on the street and they’re like i love my kids i don’t ever think oh they probably love their kids the same way they love their wife even though we know that is true sometimes unfortunately right yes right and hopefully they’re not loving their ice cream the same way they love their wife that’s a little freaky right i mean maybe that one’s all right actually but right behind closed doors you’re good um so yeah it’s it’s really fascinating the different honesty pieces another one i found talked about level one of honesty is revealing the facts and it says the first level is about revealing the facts of what you’ve done and clearing up lies from the past have you hear you tell your parents what you’ve done and you tell your partner when you’ve cheated and your friends when you’ve lied you’re confronting and undoing the image you’ve been selling to everyone about yourself this kind of reminded me of like steps four through nine it’s like well that’s interesting and then it goes on to level two which is honesty about current thoughts and feelings i was like oh that’s step 10 right it says the second level is about current thoughts and feelings you tell the truth about how you feel when you feel it and reveal your secret petty judgment this level confronts your learned habit of manipulating strategizing and having secret plans and then it goes on to a third level of exposing the fiction and it said the third level is about demythologizing yourself which i like that idea demythologizing yourself it’s about admitting you don’t really know who you are and that you developed your act in order to not appear lost it’s a broader level of truth telling that exposes the whole game and i thought that was kind of fascinating right because i feel like none of us do that we all have this self concept that we we really we’re like salesmen we sell it to ourselves we’re like yeah that’s who the [ _ ] i am that’s who i’ll be right and no we’re not we’re just [ _ ] a blob of cells yeah and that’s you know six and seven stuff like i get into digging into what are really my assets and what are my character defects and and what what things have i told myself that really aren’t true and that’s been super helpful for me personally like i know what areas i’m weaker in i can be honest with myself and for example i’m not great at organizational stuff and i’m not great with money and for the longest time if you’d asked me i’d have told you i was like oh yeah i don’t want anybody i manage my own money i’m fine man god damn it i can’t take care of myself and then like that just kept me like financially all messed up and until i could like admit that and and let my wife manage the finances and just be like look you take care of this i’ll let you know what i need i’ll talk to you before i go buy something extravagant we’ll talk about it like i’m okay with that and that it wasn’t that i was being dishonest about it before i think i was more in denial but it took like some some work to look at that and be like oh [ _ ] i’m not good with money and not only that i’ve tried to be good with money and i’m still not so it’s easier just to accept that you know the the self-honesty that i am a terrible money manager yeah i did the same thing i thought i was great at everything and what i did was just not see the places where i wasn’t great and blamed others for why things didn’t work out and and yes there’s times when we can surround ourselves with people who are good at those things or hand tasks off to people who do them better and there’s also the ability that once we own i’m not good at remembering things well now i have a calendar list so i don’t forget things right like i can employ new tactics once i own my weaknesses or my shortcomings or things that just i don’t do well i don’t want to call them weaknesses or shortcomings like i mean what the [ _ ] we can’t do everything great like we just gotta see that um you know that that level three part goes on and talks about starting the process of acknowledging that we are a secret hero in our minds and i thought that was a fascinating hero right i’m like running into burning buildings everybody knows and it says you know praising yourself openly rather than trying to manipulate praise for yourself through others and bragging about things you pretend you don’t care about and that you know this idea that like we we want this a claim a claim or high you know appeal or whatever it is high appraisal of ourselves but we want it to come from outside of us and i feel like that’s all tied into that self-worth and and low self-esteem and this idea that like i need others to rightfully put me in the place i need to be right why haven’t they made me king of the united states yet god damn it they don’t see what do you find everywhere you go you feel like i should be running this [ _ ] like why did they not ask me to be in charge i mean i would do this so much so yeah that was a that was an interesting take on the levels of honesty that some other things i found talking about if you have someone’s best interest at heart might be a time when it’s okay to lie right we we look at times when we say honesty always but like looking at times when maybe it’s better to be dishonest and so if you have someone’s best interest at heart and it says the classic examples of lying where it’s detrimental and the most damaging kinds of lies tend to be those that promote your own self-interest at the expense of others and i i thought that was interesting that maybe the honesty portion isn’t so much about being honest it’s about what are your motives right another buddhism thing like what’s your intention what are you trying to accomplish here and anytime you’re trying to fulfill your own personal gain at the expense of someone else that’s really when you don’t wanna yeah and i mean this just reminded me of that uh episode where we talked about these like recovery sayings and that one that spiritual principles are never in conflict right and i don’t know that i can say that’s a hundred percent wrong but it can get pretty tricky when it gets into this area of honesty and you know how do you is it always possible is it possible to be honest in every situation and still be loving and caring you know is is that can those two things exist at the same time i mean sometimes it certainly feels like they can’t you know and maybe i’m just doing it wrong but boy is that a [ _ ] tough tough road to find sometimes that balance of honesty and some of these other principles yeah yeah and i got a quiz for us in a little while that i think is going to bring up some of those examples of you know when lying to protect someone we love or someone we care about might be best and that’s another place where this goes into it talks about pro-social lies fibs intended to benefit others can actually build trust between people according to research and i found that to be interesting and i i look at that and i think uh so when it talks about you know promoting my own self-interest at the expense of others i think of people who cheat in relationships right their self-interest is to a have a new experience outside of their relationship but be still be looked at as a good person and that’s why they lie and at the expense of you know their partner who believes they are being faithful and then i hear this pro-socialize the fibs to benefit others and i think of like yeah this is when if i dealt with people trying to access you know government benefits or some other benefit that existed and the rules seem to be [ _ ] to me of why they don’t qualify i have no problem lying to benefit right right like that’s yeah yeah [ _ ] yeah i want you to get everything that should be coming to you in my mind so have you ever had and this just reminded me of a situation i was in have you ever had a either friend or sponsee in recovery either ask you to write something or to show up for them at court on their behalf i have not oh okay so i’ve had those situations and that’s always interesting because of course you feel like depending on what level of friend they are like how much do i want to say you know what am i okay saying they’re doing why well because who wants somebody that you know like so here was the example i had a guy i was sponsoring him he was a couple of months into recovery at the time he had been going to meetings and was doing some stuff and his lawyer or whoever wanted some a letter or something to take the court and now this goes back a long time but um and i feel like at that time i probably embellished a little more than giving like an honest assessment of where i thought he would be and of course he didn’t stick around and stay clean but it might have kept him out of jail and i you know i don’t know if that’s the wrong you killed him like really right i couldn’t yeah hey that could be um no he’s not dead but you know it’s that that pressure of like oh i’m supposed to say a certain thing here and this is someone early in recovery i don’t want to mess them up and have them go to jail and have their well right and and honestly i mean according to this and i would think so too you probably benefited your relationship with them by saying something closer to what they wanted to hear like it would be that pro-social fib right that but why i guess why the hesitancy like if they go to if they end up committing more crimes and go into prison are they going to come back to you and be like you wrote this letter billy you’re in trouble now like no it was just a matter of that uh concept of like honesty at all costs no matter what you know in that case i don’t know that i was honest at all costs i didn’t give like well my years of sponsoring people he’s got about a 50 50 chance at this point because he goes to meetings regularly but he you know hasn’t taken all the suggestions which you know that’s [ _ ] but right most people don’t stick around anyway so it’s easy to say yes you’re doing this but most people don’t make it yeah i don’t know i feel like in that case and maybe not previously but i look at it now and i’m like [ _ ] yeah i’ll say whatever like who cares come back to haunt me in any way like yeah it’s interesting i don’t think it was the wrong thing to do and i would probably do the same thing again you know i think it’s worse when you’re like telling somebody and trying to get him a job like because then i feel like it has you know we talked about that a little in the work episode or whatever like yeah i won’t do that for people for work no nope not at all [ _ ] court but yeah works different i mean i i don’t know i don’t know why that’s a different thing i guess because it comes back to haunt you a little bit i was gonna say i feel like some of that has to do with my personal uh professional integrity your ego not so much my ego because i know that’s another one of those things where you can know someone and they have some great values and them still be either terrible employees or whatever but just it’s a there’s a professional level of honesty to me that should trump my personal feelings hmm yeah i don’t know i did ask a guy to come to court for me one time and he was like i don’t go to court for people in recovery i went to jail yeah i was like well [ _ ] him right all right i mean i don’t know that it would have made any difference but i’m like damn i mean were you in recovery at the time like going to meetings and doing so i had i had had like 18 months about and he had been my sponsor at the end of that time and i used i went out for three months and i had come back and been back for like two months and then i was going to court to face the charges that i had gotten while i was out there so i was back and established and he was my sponsor again and we were like doing step work and yeah he was like no i don’t do that i was like damn wow that hurt my feelings just didn’t show up honestly he missed his pro social lying opportunity he could have just been pro social honesty i just just showed the [ _ ] up right um another time they say it’s best to lie best to lie that’s an interesting statement would be if there’s no time to change and it says say your partner ask how he or she looks right before walking on stage for a speaking event or inquires what you think of the speech just prior to reaching the podium even if you were to notice a stain on their outfit or think the speech could use some work the fact that they don’t have any time to actually react to honest information or control the situation means it’s best just to lie and i find that fascinating like instead of sending them in with you know the confidence or whatever yeah so so yeah you don’t tell the truth when there’s no time to actually adjust to the information huh i think that’s kind of fascinating yeah it says lying in this sense is seen as benefiting the other person because there’s truly nothing they could do anyway and so at least they’re going in with you know that level of confidence or thinking everything’s all right it says if they do have the time to react then you might want to reconsider the lie though and another time it says if you’re giving constructive criticism there’s another time when it might be okay to lie it says when sharing feedback honesty is important and while it’s easy to use i’m just being honest as an excuse for just being mean brutal honesty isn’t always the most effective way to get your message across instead of telling a low-performing employee that he’s performing terribly consider saying something like you’ve had a rocky start but everyone struggles at the beginning and then seguing into constructive criticism and so yeah i mean i could totally see that that definitely sounds much better you’re a piece of [ _ ] right this is never gonna work right i mean i i think that does give them the opportunity to do something different right it sounds a whole lot different but we would say at least what i’ve always been taught always honesty right but i’ve always been taught you know you’re always honest to a fault yeah or it’s like that uh dishonest bio mission like if you just don’t if someone asks you something and you don’t give them the truth and that’s dishonest right that’s what i’ve heard yeah well i think it is but i i think i’m learning that it’s really not about 100 honesty that is not necessarily the goal for my life at least i don’t know about anybody else right another time it says might be all right to lie would be right before a special occasion um the debate over lying is not only about whether honest information can help the situation but also whether the information is delivered at the right time one thing people care about is whether honest information will distract them from something important example you hear your friends company is expecting layoffs right before they leave for their wedding do you tell them and it says in these situations people tend to appreciate withholding the truth until later like why ruin their wedding and honeymoon this is i mean i get it you want to be prepared but if you’re just going to worry about something the whole time you’re away and have nothing you can control in it anyway like what’s the point and it says if your friend is about to leave for their honeymoon they won’t be in a position to preemptively explore other job opportunities while every situation is different consider asking yourself whether honesty in a situation like this would truly benefit the other person or simply be a distraction to one of their life events yeah and that i mean segway’s a little into our uh you know the conversation we had around careers and and jobs with caroline you know there’s areas as a supervisor at my work that i have or know certain information that it isn’t necessarily helpful to the guys that work for me to to know right like it’s it’s probably better that they don’t know because one they’re probably powerless to do anything about it anyway you know it’s not something that’s within their control and secondly it’s just gonna create more worry and concern and and you know it’s not going to help anything it doesn’t feel like to be honest about situations that are not within their control right right there’s another piece of this that and this was more of a comment by somebody than anything but i found it pretty fascinating it said the truth in is honesty is often a veiled form of self-indulgence and i was like well that’s fascinating and it goes on so don’t you don’t have to look too confused but the idea that honesty could just be me wanting to unload some feeling i’m having which really was fascinating to me and so it said uh when feelings build up it’s frustrating to sit with them and of course it feels damn good to release them that feel-good sensation is a form of gratification it’s like an emotional poop which provides an instant release of pressure but when we dump emotional turds on others we are flushing our relationships down the toilet while we may feel temporarily relieved when we shoot off rounds of honesty we pay a terrible price for this temporary satisfaction as we harm our relationships and our own self-esteem because you don’t feel proud of yourself afterwards and i found that to be fascinating there was another piece on here that was about brutal honesty and what that really means and like the three facts about people who are brutally honest and number three was that they call themselves brutally honest people you’re right but the other two were that like facts are a very subjective experience like we we call them facts as if they’re universal truths but the people who practice this brutal honesty tend to share their opinions as facts facts yeah and really believe that they’re facts like and this person was somebody who worked in customer service so they were relating that people would call up and be like after a price increase the people would be like this service costs too much that’s just a fact and stuff like that and he’s like what and they would be like super mean about it and and he would explain like look you know this was clearly stated to you months ago you have the option to not have the service like that’s an option for you you could switch services like any of these things are possible and the people were like in refusal to accept at the price well basically it’s like wow yeah so maybe honesty is this the self-indulgence this like we call it honesty but we’re really just don’t know how to sit with the way we feel about something and so we take it out on someone else through our honesty yeah and in that vein i was just thinking we so my wife and i have been watching quite a few different shows lately uh and recognizing how like the world portrayed through like whatever mainstream television [ _ ] people just lie all the time like that is their go-to for problems is just to lie and that seems to be just completely okay with a lot of these shows and as people in recovery we kind of recognize it like why don’t they just tell the truth they’re like it’s going to be a little bit uncomfortable but i mean i guess lying makes for good tv or something but at least in her and i talking about we’re like is that really how the world works like how the world sees itself is that people just lie all the time about half the time very mundane things that aren’t really that important you know but they’ll still lie to for very self-interest reasons i don’t know i wonder i don’t know so that’s interesting so i’m trying to think of like people i know and i mean people i generally interact with i assume are telling the truth most of the time but yeah i’ve definitely been around people who who lie pretty much all the [ _ ] time about anything and everything and and sometimes for seemingly no reason but it is fascinating i wonder how much the average person actually lies well i can say from my work experience that it does it’s surprising to a lot of people when we’re completely honest about stuff at work i mean there’s times we make mistakes or we tell people like you know we do troubleshooting on heating equipment and there’s not always like a easy oh your thing broke because of this reason and here’s what it needed to fix it sometimes like you’re doing a little bit of guesswork sometimes you just you ha you don’t know you don’t have a good answer to like why your heater’s making this noise and sometimes we gotta tell like oh we don’t we don’t know you know we can start changing parts if you want to start us we’ll start changing a bunch of parts but a lot of times we go into it and say look we’re not really exactly sure what’s going on here you know if you want we can start changing some parts and making some guesses but if we’re wrong you don’t get that money back or we can just wait and see if it gets and people don’t always know how to take that or telling people like oh yeah i’m sorry we made a mistake you know we made a mistake and we’ll take it you know and you’ll get the well well why well because we’re human beings and not everyone’s perfect all the time and [ _ ] happens i mean it’s right and people are often i think they very much appreciate it but you can tell that that’s not what they’re used to hearing right right yeah i would wow i wish there was a way to like i don’t even know how to state it like how much i think the average person tells the truth versus lies like i don’t know if i give that in a percent or is it 50 50. i i would bet i would bet if i actually wrote down everything i did and had like a a truth professor look at it i would probably say i lie way more than i realize oh sure i don’t know how many people just you ask them how they’re doing and they’re like oh i’m great oh that’s every [ _ ] right everybody tells that lie everybody’s so great man we should not be having all the strife we have in the world if everybody’s walking around so great living the dream all right yeah i mean it’s facebook you know is a just a not an accurate representation of their daily life like this episode has been brought to you in 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you ready to get into this quiz yeah let’s do it all right honesty quiz question number one your very self-conscious partner has clearly gained some weight your partner asks you point blank if they look fat do you tell the truth no i would not do you lie um so i would say something like i think you’re beautiful something along those lines i would you know that that seems like totally avoiding the answer that’s exactly what i would you would just avoid yes it’s avoiding the answer a lie yes yeah i mean yes i i would say that’s why i said i would lie i wouldn’t be like oh no i don’t think you you know but i feel that becomes my justification though because it’s the truth you know right but well and this is interesting so they’ve gained some weight it doesn’t actually say if they’re fat right like and and what is fat right i’m sure it’s different for each person and are they see i’ve said a truth not the truth so that’s that’s a fascinating i’m wondering like what would i say i would probably try to acknowledge the reality and the feeling of it like i think that’s the route i would go like oh i can tell you’re really concerned about that that must really hurt your feelings to think that your worth is based in you know how you look or you don’t feel good about how you’ve been treating your body lately that’s got to be really tough yeah i feel like that’s a great misdirection sounds really compassionate too but i feel like that’s a great like yeah i can avoid answering this all together with something really nice yeah well i don’t know if i want to say this but i’m going to say it anyway because i don’t think my wife listens anymore so she’ll say things all the time about like plastic surgery in different ways like i’m gonna go get this surgery or that surgery so i can be like so and so or whatever and i’ll say oh i don’t you know i love you just the way you are i don’t want you to be fake or be something you’re not which is kind of true but at the same time who doesn’t want a woman with nice big full breasts or you know they look nice yeah i mean my wife had had breast surgery here’s the interesting thing i’d always thought it would be a great idea right and then after we scheduled it i got really really worried about it i was like what if she dies like going under anesthesia or something breast surgery right right i was like holy [ _ ] or or how shallow does this make me or or you know what does this really say about me and her like do we not accept like i’m trying to be this guy who accepts who i am and all these things and what does this mean about me and i don’t know i can say the after effects is i’m very happy i guess that makes me whoever the [ _ ] it makes me but huh wow it’s been nice yeah i don’t know so yeah i i think no probably i think if i was caught off guard probably the thing that i would answer about you know am i fat or do i look fat would be like i mean well yes you have put on some weight but you know it doesn’t look as bad as you think it does or i something along the lines of like it it’s not something it’s that’s not how i view your worth so like that’s not everything i’m looking at when i look at you and yeah i would say that something along those lines all right so we don’t tell the truth there there’s there’s number one we’re liars on question one all right question two the person you’ve been dating for a couple months is excited to have finally met your closest friends however it turns out that your friends don’t like your new love interest at all when your date asks what your friends thought of them do you spill the beans you say my friends hated you

right if my date asked like how the yeah no i’m lying i ain’t telling the total truth there that’s for damn sure yeah i don’t think i would tell the truth there either wow so we’re liars on two of these already yeah i mean how can you nah my friends [ __ ] hate you like what right now what about the other way around would you if your girlfriend hated all your friends would you tell your friends ooh probably not yeah cause i went that way either right i want all the people i like to get along with each other i can’t have you guys not liking each other right so that’s interesting because i’ve run into some people who talk about not liking their partner’s friends or their partners friends being bad influences and i’m like do these people have insight their partner doesn’t have and why are they with that partner if all the person or partner’s friends suck i don’t think he ever listens to this so i’ll say my brother like i not the biggest fan of his wife you know but i i’m not going to tell him

somebody else can tell him now i guess i can’t believe he told us shock yeah all right wow we’re we’re liars billy yeah okay here we go oh this is [ _ ] up you’re about to have sex for the first time with a new love interest just as you’re getting started your partner asks if you’ve been tested for an std you haven’t but you’re pretty sure you’re clean do you tell your partner that you haven’t been tested ah [ _ ] right how hot are they how long’s it depends

um i would think in my life now i would probably be honest but probably 10 years ago probably not or you know early in recovery definitely not like when i was using definitely not like oh yeah i got tested yesterday just got your results back on the phone and screaming actually i i’m gonna try to be self-honest here i like to think that i would say that i have not been tested if i have not been tested but man given the right situation i could definitely see me lying if it was something i didn’t want to not happen yeah wow okay i’m gonna i’m gonna i’m gonna put yes for that that we would definitely tell just because it might be no that we would definitely tell the truth because that might be the only one your new mother-in-law gives you an absolutely hideous sweater for your birthday what do you do only wear it when she’s visiting wait a few months and then tell her you lost it admit that it’s not your style i would take it and probably never wear it yeah it’s not an option on here i think i would do though or and if she ever asked i would just say oh yeah i don’t know where that is i would say that i lost it so i guess they’ll say that i lost it would probably be closer to the truth i actually told somebody the other day and i don’t that’s interesting so my my therapy advice to people is lie sometimes like when it when the truth doesn’t seem like it’s going to be beneficial to anyone like i feel like you would hurt somebody’s feelings possibly like you might be able to tell depending on this individual but you don’t know her like she’s she’s your new mother-in-law right right you might be able to tell her like i just don’t feel like i’m ever gonna wear this is there you know recede i can take it back and get something i’d like more maybe but i feel like i think i told somebody the other day hey look just put it on and go get like five different pictures of you in it in different places like your hair done different and then it’ll look like you used it a bunch of times and i just thought i would probably like lie about it and then a couple of years later like if if we maintained a relationship and we’re open with each other like yeah you got me that sweater that [ __ ] was hideous i never wore that it went into trash later truth went to the goodwill yeah right later truth does it hurt less later well that’s where it depends on the relationship like hopefully you would know that person by then as you mentioned it’s a new mother-in-law so i don’t know how they would take it you know there’s certain people in my life that if they got me something i didn’t like i mean if my wife got me a shirt and i didn’t like it i would be like oh that’s not really my style i’m going to take that back but if it was my kids i don’t know i would probably keep it you know so it’s not like i will always lie to spare someone’s feelings it depends on the person and how i think that’s gonna affect them huh you don’t think it would hurt your wife’s feelings um why couldn’t you tell your kids that

because i would think so and again it would depend on the kid almost i would say like if they’re younger i mean now they’re getting a little older so they’re more like adults right um but if it was my kid i would want them to think that i loved it and that it was great and they did a great job kids can’t handle the truth ah

is it about they can’t handle the truth or is it about the lie gonna be more hurtful than just saying it’s great you know that’s where it’s like i i don’t know that the benefit outweighs the harm i’m just gonna start wearing hideous clothes when people give them to me not lying no more goddammit uh things are financially tight for you so you decide to sell your car the car has broken down several times over the last six months do you tell your potential buyer yes i disclose everything that’s wrong with it no way kind of i’ll say that it may need a few minor repairs probably closer to the third although i will say that when we’ve i am typically the yes i’ll tell them everything because we’ve sold a few things we’ve sold campers and stuff that have needed work and if when people buy [ _ ] from me i will stand there and start rattling off all the [ _ ] that’s wrong with it when they buy it because i feel so guilty because i’ve bought [ _ ] used and i’m mad when i get a bunch of problems so what we’ve done more recently is i let my wife handle that stuff because she’s better at selling stuff than me and i i’ll give them all the stuff that’s wrong with it even if they don’t ask i’m not good at that stuff damn so you copped out i just avoid the situation where i have to decide if i’m going to be honest or hurt myself yeah well that’s where i just let my wife handle it that’s the cop and out part yeah yeah i’ll let her handle if she’s gonna lie or tell the truth she’s gonna have that on her right even her on her conscious huh yeah i don’t know i feel like this is why i don’t ever want to sell [ _ ] to people now because i don’t like it like if i sell some [ _ ] on ebay from time to time and i’ll be as thoroughly honest as i can right because i don’t want people to be disappointed like look this has this little crack here’s a picture of it this is what it you know still works fine whatever but i have never wanted to sell like a car to a person especially a person i know yeah definitely not someone i know like i’ll just give it to the [ _ ] dealership they can give me whatever they’re giving me i mean we’re in that situation now and and i am half of me is i’d say angry but half of me is torn on we purchased a used car from my sister-in-law and she was the owner i’ve known her for 20 years been with my wife 20 years and she doesn’t seem like the kind of person that would lie or take advantage of us but man we got this car and it needs a [ _ ] ton of work and i’m like christ this car needs more work than it’s even worth and now we just bought it from her and yeah it’s really awkward and it makes me think is she a liar like is she she is definitely rip us the [ _ ] off i don’t know if she ripped you off intentionally but she is definitely a liar as we’ve established everyone is a liar that’s true but yeah if it feels very awkward if yeah definitely has affected my view of her well we bought a car from a dealership a while back a few years back and it was like 3 500 or something and that [ _ ] thing has been a disaster of like [ _ ] breaking [ _ ] already broke [ _ ] was cracked when we got it and like it’s like [ _ ] man that is the i don’t want that i want like something certified from now on like [ _ ] all that right all right question six you’re oh we were i wanted to say you talked about does honesty afterwards hurt less and i don’t know so i dated uh it was like my first love kinda and she had after we started dating like a month later kissed this boy that she used to date at his house on the way home from school all right whatever it hurt but i got over it moved on so like three years later we’ve been broken up for like two years and she’s like remember when i told you i kissed that boy at his house i was like yeah she’s like yeah i slept with him i was like oh now looking at that rationally it probably hurt less than than it would have when when she actually did it but it still hurt like a [ _ ] yeah it was like oh that’s brutal you should have just never told me yeah she must not done that nine step with a sponsor she was clearing her conscience so and that’s one of those things in our ninth step what you know that it talks about when you make that amends it’s like is it going to be harmful to other people for me to go be honest with them about a situation yeah well and that was the situation she was relieving her burden but she gave it to me right that’s not cool i didn’t like that at all keep that [ _ ] to yourself bad sponsorship information yeah your ex calls you out of the blue and wants to catch up do you tell your partner about the call yes yeah i feel like i do there too because i don’t really care yeah that was an easy one a cashier accidentally gives you an extra twenty dollars do you give the money back yes yeah same here see there’s ways we’re honest yeah totally shitty you’re on vacation in the bahamas and you really really want to stay an extra day you could easily call your boss and tell them the flight was delayed do you get your butt home one time no no if i really want to stay an extra day i just but i tell the truth yeah i’m like i’m just yeah i’m the same way i would stay another day and just say hey we’re staying another day is it going to be a problem i see i probably wouldn’t even ask yeah i would say it in that way and then be like oh well i’m not coming anywhere let me rephrase that i’m not gonna be there right yeah i think i’ve learned to avoid giving people the option to like turn down what i want well it’s funny because i kind of have as well i’ve i’ve noticed that in my life i will ask certain things even though i already know what the answer is but i’ll ask it like i’m asking oh yeah and i’ve tried to get better at that actually i don’t do that much anymore i’m like hey i’m not it’s not no longer like can i call out today i’m sick it’s like yeah i’m i’m not coming right yeah everything i’ve got the same yeah this is what i’m doing hope that works for you all right

oh here’s one you just had sex with your significant other and it wasn’t very enjoyable for you do you tell them i this is a dumb ass question because when is it not i’m going to say i’m trying to think of times we’ve had sex it’s not enjoyable yeah does that exist

that’s a that’s a question for a female not really a man uh i mean no i don’t know yeah i don’t i don’t imagine i would tell them yeah i might i mean like what could make it unenjoyable

if there was something unenjoyable could i like tell them oh hey i wasn’t really a fan of this let’s do it more like this next time but i can’t even imagine what wouldn’t be enjoyable everybody

wow yeah we need we need jenny or uh somebody else on here to answer this caroline i need to come and answer this for us right in ladies tell us about your your unenjoyable experiences and if you tell me when it’s not enjoyable and number 10 your boss’s breath really stinks do you tell them no no i don’t tell anybody when their breath stinks back up five feet you’re like shouldn’t we be wearing masks in this conversation let’s cover boss yeah haven’t you heard about omicron here it’s a mask huh do i tell them i i don’t know i think the situation matters like are they getting ready to go meet the president or something i’m probably gonna [ _ ] tell them so i tell people like if they have something like on their face or if they have something in their teeth like that stuff but bad breath it’s a tough one i feel like i don’t know that seems different so going by our guidance earlier if they were going to a special event to meet somebody important so to speak and they had time to change it and probably tell them if they don’t have time to change it i’m like smell great yeah and we have really awkward situations at work uh yeah so when we do service or we have a history of people that have like roaches or gross stuff in their house like that’s hard to be honest with people about we can’t come into your house because you have cockroaches huh so you just don’t that’s interesting like you just don’t go do it no wow i mean because would you want to be so i try to deal with it like if it was me and i had to go to their house and i walked into someone’s house and they had a bunch of cockroaches would i want to be in there you know what i mean would i want to put myself in that situation no or basements that are full of asbestos piping or any other number of weird i thought that was just part of the job though asbestos is easier uh no well the other one will be animals people lock their [ _ ] animals in their basement and then let them [ _ ] and piss all over the floor and then want us to go down there and work on the heater like that’s pretty gross so yeah so there are definitely situations where we don’t go into people’s houses and no it’s pretty nasty wow yeah that’s uh i know what do you tell them trying to be honest with them on the phone about that you gotta clean up your dog [ _ ] and get the smell of the piss out i don’t know yeah that’s what well typically we have a kind of wording will be like yeah you know the conditions there really aren’t safe to put our employees in and unless it can be cleaned up substantially you know that would have to be done before we can come back and most people it’s it’s interesting most people when you tell them that we’ll clean it up like they’re they’re aware it’s just still awkward and uncomfortable yeah i bet it is that is [ _ ] weird huh yeah i’m glad i’m not in that situation so your score is a 35. although you recognize that honesty is generally the best policy you also know that the truth hurts and can lead to arguments statistics show that people tell on average seven white lies a day from saying i’m fine we talked about that one when they’re having a terrible day to complimenting someone on an outfit that they actually dislike you are no exception you allow yourself the occasional guilt-free fib depending on the situation and the importance of the withheld information you probably don’t intend to be dishonest when you do tell a lie it’s probably the most practical solution in a tricky situation of course you may also tell a few lies in order to save your butt but honestly who wouldn’t do that as long as you use sound judgment your lying is probably harmless but think twice about the consequences before shading the truth huh yeah i mean i would say that’s pretty accurate i i’m just fascinated i mean coming from a place where it’s like complete honesty and you’ve got a [ _ ] 35 and they’re like you passed what’s the high score a hundred a hundred i guess i’m assuming does it give you any other results like can you read what the other results are no no no but i’m assuming you gave a 35 out of 100 honest i’m assuming you were honest less than half of the time in those situations they gave so our society is full of liars tv has it right yes yes they have it absolutely right we just lie all the time and that’s just the way it is even people who think they’re practicing complete honesty are only doing it 35 of the time wow so yeah that’s fascinating so what do you what do you take out all this um for myself i try to judge my whatever white lies or dishonesty by what the impact will be and and how you know harmful or hurtful it’ll be towards others um i minimize a lot of things if it’s to a big company or corporation or somebody that’s not an individual and it feels like it’s not going to be very harmful it’s way easier for me to to justify those kind of lies than it is to like my kids or my significant other or a close personal relationship like those are areas that i think are more sacred you know and that that it feels more uh damaging to lie so yeah and i i think this new concept of looking at it as a balance right like it’s not really about being a hundred percent honest like i’ve always considered that it is like this 35 right and granted these are very selected situations where we were talking about and so maybe if you just gave maybe if they added in like normal everyday situations too along with these very select like hard ones you know maybe your score is like 60 or something but it was more about being balanced in the middle than it was about being at either extreme right you don’t want to be the zero or the hundred you really want to be near the 50 of like i’m taking into consideration honesty is important but also taking into consideration people’s feelings and they should be lying 50 percent of the time apparently yeah we should be misguiding people 50 of the time is the goal no i still think honesty is if you can do it in a loving compassionate way is still what i want to do most of the time i don’t think that exists yeah that’s what i’m starting to wonder i’m gonna i’m gonna evaluate this honesty as more of a balance from now on and see what happens i don’t really see how often i lie too i’m still gonna try to be honest as much as possible yeah i i don’t wanna lie when there’s no reason to that’s for sure but i i think there’s i’m just seeing a lot more cases where there might be a reason to now granted the lie i told last night there was no reason for that like i i thought it was going to help me but again i thought it was going to help me so here’s a weird just a with the lying like maybe we should be lying 50 of the time like when i go into whatever wawa in the cashier behind the counter and saying oh you know you look great today like whether she looks great or not like just saying you know [ __ ] like that like it’s probably a lie but is it gonna make her feel better right i feel like the world would be a better place there you go go be liars the world will be a better place all right see you next week

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