Sunday, December 19, 2004

Catch 22?

These past few days, I've been thinking a great deal about the difficulty that sometimes arises when you're faced with the choice of being honest or being kind. If honesty is going to hurt someone else's feelings, is honesty the best route? But what if, by being kind, you put yourself in a bad situation? Normally, I choose to be honest, although it has sometimes felt cruel. Yet now I find myself facing a situation that I thought had been resolved by my past honesty. So what do you do if you've tried being honest in the past, and the other person simply chooses not to believe you?

In the particular case I'm thinking of, being brutally honest leaves me feeling like a b*tch. Yet being kind makes me ultimately feel like a phony. So I can be honest, hurt someone else's feelings (though it's for their own good), and end up feeling horrible about myself. Or I can be kind, let the other person believe what they want to believe, and end up feeling horrible about myself.

I love having choices.

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