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9. Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen? My answer: Yes, I do the best I can.
I always think it is important to reflect on whether I’m being honest. I have found it in my nature to say boastful things that are not quite true, or when threatened at work, to BS my way through something instead of honestly answering, “I don’t know”. I truly strive to be without guile, but I find it very difficult. That is my personal struggle.
I remember my father more than once telling me, ‘If I catch you lying to me, I’ll never trust you again.” This was a really bad thing for him to do. Lying is natural to a young teenager: kind of like why does a male peacock put out the big set of feathers? We boast, we exaggerate, we evade, we lie to protect ourselves — not good, but natural. Maybe this is the natural man that is an enemy to god, but nonetheless, it happens.
So I once lied to my dad (maybe more than once, but it started with once). Then I covered up the lie with another lie. Then it got bigger and bigger until it was completely out of hand. At one point I couldn’t even sort out the cockamamie story I concocted. What a mess. Then it all came collapsing in on me and I was in the doghouse for months.
I learned two things here. One, it’s better to admit early that I lied, even if it’s going to be painful. doubling down never works. and Two, I will never put that kind of threat on any of my kids. To make a natural act something that can never be forgiven simply turns the person into a liar. The church does so much like that with it’s expectation of perfection on several of the commandments. It doesn’ thelp.
So my take on honesty is to honestly try your hardest to be honest.
And ignore the apparent irony of the Church asking if you are honest in your dealings with your fellow man…Let’s just not go there.
If it can be asked with a straight face, it can be answered with a straight face. I always answer that question like you do, wayfarer. I always say something like, “I try my hardest.” That’s an honest answer for me.
Being honest has never been a problem for me or caused me any hassle from the other person when answering this particular question. I’m not sure how I would respond if anyone ever pushed back at me for that answer – other than perhaps to look at the them like this
😯 and say, “Seriously?!”Yes. I will be honest whether you like it or not.
BTW…this was by far the toughest question for me to answer all those years as a blue shirt, beer drinking EQP. …and for the most part a closet NOM. I was pretty closed lipped about my unorthodoxy…they all just thought I was a “Jack Mormon.”
I felt like I was honest, to myself and my leaders, but not so much to my extended family and branch members.
Perhaps I made a mistake “being honest” with them about my beliefs? But, things without all remedy should be without regard. What is done, is done.
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I answered “no”. Not because I intentionally deceive people, but because if I was totally honest I would lose my job, have my wife hating me, tick off my neighbours, and have no friends. There are times when you need to alter the truth out of preserving relationships, particularly on issues that are sensitive to other people. So in my view, complete honesty is not the hallmark of a spiritually and relationship-sensitive person. Also, in sales positions, if you are completely honest, you would starve. Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) is alive and well in business and daily life.
It’s a question that is doomed to make people lie or give the “try to be” answer that has become standard fare in the church.
Now, what would I answer? Probably “yes” unless I had willful fraud in my life or something illegal, but really, am I totally honest, and is it prudent to be so all the time? Definitely not.
In some ways this is a humorous question. If you are honest the answer is “yes”.
If you are dishonest the answer is “yes”.
bc_pg wrote:In some ways this is a humorous question.
If you are honest the answer is “yes”.
If you are dishonest the answer is “yes”.
let’s see if ray can parse the answer, “No, I am never honest, even now, I am lying”…bc_pg wrote:In some ways this is a humorous question.
If you are honest the answer is “yes”.
If you are dishonest the answer is “yes”.
That is a very good point.
Perhaps the question needs to go away….actually there are several questions that need to go away…but I will start that thread when we are done with this exercise.
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A good friend of mine answered “Of course not! I work in HR!” I tend to think of this as dealings=transactions. For some reason that’s how I always took it. And I wouldn’t cheat someone. I would always seek transparency and a win-win, but there are times to omit information, too. For exmple, if sharing your markup puts you at a disadvntage and competitors dont disclose it, then it seems unfair to disclose it. The buyer would have the upper hand.
I answer the question “Yes” but I’m not completely honest with people. The reason is that we live in a very close knit community in a facebook world. People feel entitled to know everything about you and they are nosy. They ask questions that aren’t their business and I answer with misleading technical truths in order to end conversations I don’t want to engage in.
Is that honest? No.
When it comes to “dealings” as in transactions involving money, commitments, or confidences – you won’t find anyone more trustworthy. But I’m a relatively private person and my boundaries are much more important to me than they seem to be to a lot of members of the church.
Am I honest in my dealings with my fellowmen? Yes. Am I honest about everything all the time? No & thank God for Repentance.
I have a tendency to stretch the truth when it flatters.
I have a tendency to be quiet when I can’t.
We all want to be accepted & admired for something.
If you want to know how intelligent & cute my grandkids are, just ask me.
I’ll even send pictures.
Mike from Milton.
ps. This is a silly way to make my point. But, it’s probably true on all levels of my life.
Ironically, while I am by nature a terrible liar, I sometimes feel that because of my continued church involvement I am becoming much better at it. The more I am forced to engage in the practice of nuancing the vast majority of my at-church and about-church discussion, the dirtier I feel. Yuck. How’s that for cynical? I think it would be awesome to answer: “Yes I am, and that is a hideous tie!” Quote:The more I am forced to engage in the practice of nuancing the vast majority of my at-church and about-church discussion, the dirtier I feel.
Perspectives are interesting, aren’t they? I don’t see it nuancing; I see it as being honest about how I see things.
There’s no snark in that; I really am fascinated by differing perspectives.
Maybe you could argue that having some discretion and tact about what you say or don’t say is technically less honest than sharing everything you think with everyone you can. However, I don’t believe that makes it any kind of sin and almost no one would be completely honest if that was the criteria for calling someone an honest person. Actually, I don’t believe exceptional honesty (to a fault) is what this question was ever really about as much as exceptional dishonesty where others are legitimate victims of being misled to the point that it does real harm. It is basically the modern day equivalent of past temple recommend questions about stealing someone else’s livestock, crops, irrigation water, etc. What I think the Church was aiming for with this question was mostly to try to prevent long-standing grudges between Church members and also to avoid having people blame the Church for the bad behavior of some Church members as much as possible by making an official statement that anyone doing this kind of thing is not temple worthy in their book. I also think this could be the question that members actually lie about the most other than chastity because I have seen and heard about some very shady behavior by members with temple recommends where I thought there was no way they were telling the truth about this question. I guess if some members are more concerned with keeping up appearances than almost anything else or they believe their own lies to the point that they feel comfortable about taking advantage of others’ trust then it makes sense that many of them would easily answer yes to this question no matter how inaccurate it is.
Like others, I always used to answer with a conditional “yes, as much as I can.” or “Yes, as much as is reasonable.” I am honest in a common sense way. I try not to mislead people or cause them harm either through disclosure or withholding information. I also have to consider prior commitments I have made to others about privacy or outright secrecy.
For example, when I was in Military Intel, I swore an oath (literally with my arm to the square) not to discuss certain kinds of information. That right there creates a dividing line where you are either completely honest by upholding your oath, or completely honest by not withholding information from people. You can’t be absolutely and completely honest to everyone at that point. So you do the best you can, and do what you think is MOST right.
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