Someone once told me, “You have to stay true to who you are…even if that means exposing your catty head.”
Being honest with ourselves is easier said than done.
I’ve been there. Most of us have.
Sometimes, we get so absorbed in the journey, the process, the ‘getting there’ part that our view gets blurry, and in the quiet of our mind, we managed to tell ourselves that this is what we want. This is who we are. At least for a second, we’ll believe it. But one way or another, the truth always catches up.
Growth requires honesty.
Honesty to admit that our old ways aren’t working anymore. Though they may be hard to let go, the sooner you do it, the better off you’ll be.
Honesty to admit to ourselves that this is not who we are, even if it is what the whole world wants us to be—what we might have wanted ourselves to be.
Honesty to admit that we have strayed a little bit from the path of our growth.
Yes, honesty is more complicated than we hoped; that’s because the truth is precious. The fact that we’re having a hard time practicing honesty doesn’t mean we just got used to lying. It just means we haven’t taught ourselves how to bear and accept the truth with grace yet.
I messed up, too.
Not more than a week ago, I found myself neck-deep in trouble.
I tried to be something, or someone, I was not.
The reason why it took so long for me to finally accept the truth was because I really didn’t want to. Accepting the truth meant accepting the reality that I was lying to myself—worst of all, I was lying to the people who have been there for me since day one.
But I realized that the only way forward was to accept the truth, forgive myself, and try again in the morning. So that’s what I did.
I unpacked the baggage, laid it all down for you and me to see, forgave myself, learned from the experience, and carried the lesson moving forward.
After all, isn’t everything we do a way for us to be more than the person we were yesterday? Stay honest to yourself, and you already are. Take it slowly, my dear reader. There is no need to rush.
Growth is a process, and we’ll get there soon enough.
So how have you been doing lately? Start a conversation or share this article with someone important to you.
