Honesty is the ability of an individual to express his true position (thoughts), to speak the truth under any circumstances. A person with honesty knows how to admit his guilt, is able to avoid lies and omissions in judgment when communicating with others. Honesty is a sign of a conscientious person who is able to control actions and words, be sincere, and not cross the line. A person with the quality of honesty avoids deception in any situation, without selfish motives to misinform the interlocutor. In contrast to a truthful person, an honest individual is capable of telling lies, but it is believed that at the same time he retains his property of being honest, since he himself believes in lies.
What is Honesty - essay
Honesty is one of the most important qualities of a person. This is the ability to always admit that you are wrong and be sincere in any situation.
Everyone has been taught since childhood that lying is bad. But over time we forget about this, because once we lie, we will continue to do so. To undertell, to embellish, and thus simply to lie, these are ordinary things in our everyday life. We think that it will be easier and simpler for us. But, over time, everything secret becomes an obvious and clearly expressed lie for everyone.
You need to be able to express your thoughts honestly and this is the only way to solve this or that situation. An honest person always inspires trust in the people around him. After all, they do not see negative qualities in him, but only kindness and sincerity.
You can rely on such a person and have a good time together. Knowing that he will never discuss you or say something behind your back. There are very few such people and it is very lucky to have such a friend.
I believe that lying is bad, first of all, for yourself. After all, after lying to someone dear to you or even just a friend, you feel morally depressed.
You will not be able to remember all your lies and someday you will misspoke. You will most likely feel ashamed, and you will want to fix everything and return it, but people will stop trusting you.
You will lose what is most precious, but only some omissions and secrets. And it’s very difficult to regain people’s trust. Having caught you in a lie once is enough to stop communicating with you altogether.
The main thing in a person is honesty, when he is trusted, and he can be himself. Honest people are highly valued in our gray world, do not become one of these evil and selfish people who have forgotten about moral values.
I respect honest people and try to be a truthful and polite person. But this is not as simple as it seems from the outside; you need a lot of strength and nerves, which are often lacking. Try to make this world a little kinder and more honest.
Sincerity and Honesty: Differences
Such similar, but different concepts. What is the difference?
Honesty is the truthful reporting of factual information. Sincerity is the harmony of words, actions and internal feelings.
Imagine the situation. A young man cheated on his girlfriend. His former offended passion found out about the offense, quickly collected incriminating evidence and set off to ruin other people’s relationships, hiding behind good intentions. She described the situation extremely honestly and in detail, showed a photo, and shared her story of separation. The girls cried and complained that all the men were... That’s where they parted. The story is true, but what is the intent? It is likely that the good intentions hid not the salvation of the unfortunate girl, but revenge on the ex-boyfriend. There was no sincerity in the honest confession.
Often people are not aware of the reasons for their own behavior. When performing an act, they are guided by thoughts that contradict reality. Modern man is so mired in lies that he cannot admit to himself the true motives of his actions. This is how the mechanism of self-destruction starts.
What do I understand by the word Honesty?
Everyone has their own understanding of honesty. As for me, this is a person who does not deceive himself first, and then those around him.
An honest person is never afraid to tell the truth, no matter what it is, and does not start gossip behind his back. He respects those around him, regardless of whether they are close to him or a stranger.
He sincerely loves his family, values his reputation and trust in him, values what he has and never pretends, portraying himself as better than he really is. The one who is called “honest” always works conscientiously and will never be ashamed of himself. This is a small part of the qualities of an “honest person”, but, as for me, they are the most important and true.
Since childhood, we were taught that lying is wrong, but we were never told why. A person can lie for good purposes, but never thinks about the consequences. The consequences can be very different, because someday the secret becomes obvious.
Soon, the person who lied loses confidence in himself. Those close to him will not be able to trust him, since he has already lied. Of course, it’s one thing if a person didn’t say something, and quite another if he lied to a loved one, for example a friend. After this, it is unlikely that this person will be able to be a true friend.
Everyone also treats lies differently. For some, lying is like going to the store. Some people, having lied, then rethink everything, and their conscience torments them. They want to talk about their actions, but they are afraid of the reaction of the deceived person. Someone takes it lightly that a person lied to him. He doesn’t even imagine that this could go on for the rest of his life.
I believe that you need to tell the truth, no matter what it is. Some people can speak bluntly, and without thinking about the consequences, thereby hurting a person. In such cases, before speaking, you should think and then present it in a softer form. Perhaps it’s worth preparing the person first if this is something really serious.
You just have to put yourself in this person’s shoes and think what you would do if they lied to you. Therefore, it is worth thinking about the feelings of another person when you lie to him. Don't think that it will just go away. After all, there will always be another person who will lie to you too. That is, all your lies will soon return to you.
You can be confident in an honest person and you can trust him. It's more difficult with deceitful people. They may say that this will not happen again, but there is no guarantee. He will also be able to lie or betray for the second and third time. You need to immediately identify such people and try to communicate with them as little as possible.
In any case, honest people are treated differently. After all, few people would want their friend to lie to them.
It's worth striving to be honest. However, honest people are not always understood, especially those who love to lie. It is necessary to instill in a child from early childhood that lying is bad. Words alone are not enough and therefore it is worth explaining everything specifically and even giving specific examples.
Is everything so clear?
In reality, everything is not so simple. Should a doctor be honest? Naturally! How can we trust him with our health and even life if he lies to us, making the wrong diagnoses or prescribing unnecessary medications.
What if, based on the results of your tests, the doctor finds out the terrible truth. Should he then come and tell you point-blank: “Everything is very bad.” No chance. No one and nothing will help you." Are you sure you would like to hear this truth from a doctor? And that such honesty is really much better than understatement. After all, the doctor could have acted differently. Tell you that he was very upset by the results of your tests. And he will think about what can be done. This is a “white lie.” And to say that this is bad would be wrong.
And also, in society, there are stereotypes and dogmas. And you are not at all obliged to follow them. If your path of self-development and self-expression does not correspond to someone else's ideas, this does not mean that you should correspond to them. Live in a way that is true and right for you personally. We repeat: if it does not harm anyone and does not violate the boundaries of other people in any way.
Honesty in relationships
- Honesty breeds trust. And trust is the basis of strong family relationships, friendships, raising children and career growth. How many families have been destroyed due to lies and deception, how many friends and relationships have been lost. And the reason for this is the lack of honesty in relationships between people
- It is important to understand that small lies always develop into bigger ones. It accumulates like a snowball, causing in a person constant feelings of tension, nervousness, guilt and fear of being exposed. This can greatly ruin your life and relationships with loved ones and acquaintances.
- Lying causes stress and health problems.
There is real evidence of the positive impact of honesty on human health. The results of such studies were carried out in America and were published there.
Half of the 110-person group was asked to stop lying for 10 weeks. The other half did not receive any instructions. Scientists assessed the health status and level of interpersonal relationships of each of the subjects on a weekly basis. The number of “wrongs” said was determined using a lie detector.
Essay on Honesty
At all times, there have been such concepts as love, loyalty and friendship. Among them, the word honesty stands out as a bright spot, which to some extent is a kind of basis for these categories.
Honesty is one of the components of the moral side of a person. It is associated with the ability to express thoughts and feelings directly, without confusion, whatever they may be. These are motives that come from the depths of the soul. Thoughts that are fueled by integrity and truthfulness.
Where there is honesty, there is also loyalty, integrity and conscience. This concept should accompany a person throughout his life. If such a pattern is violated, then deception comes into force, for which sooner or later one becomes ashamed.
Lack of honesty leads to doubts and a person's split opinion. Each of us can stumble at least once in our lives. Then comes acquaintance with this quality. Having experienced awkwardness or fear, a person sees two ways - lies or sincerity. Deception prevents you from leading a healthy lifestyle.
Joy, respect from others, trust fill the heart when there is nothing to hide, there is no stone in one’s bosom. Dishonesty is, first of all, self-deception, which weighs heavily on the soul. To avoid omissions and excuses, you need to learn to admit your own wrongness and develop this quality of character in yourself.
If we strive for kindness and decency, then honesty will certainly become a mentor in enriching the moral side of a person. It becomes an assistant in acquiring other equally important qualities such as straightforwardness, self-confidence, lack of boasting, which save a person from weaknesses, help to acquire willpower, and be successful in every endeavor.
In any area of our life, a person experiences the influence of honesty from the outside or encounters it personally, earning respect or being criticized by others. Thus gaining experience, we give a correct assessment of ourselves, choosing the right actions in the future.
The main qualities of an honest person are to trust people, tell the truth and be yourself!
There are different situations in life when a person is faced with a problem and it needs to be solved, where suddenly an exculpatory mechanism turns on, which begins to persuade him to evade actions or, on the contrary, to act in a selfish manner contrary to his conscience. This cannot be allowed!
Remember - dishonesty and deception almost always come to light. The truth cannot be hidden! Lying is punishable. If retribution or punishment did not come right now, then it will definitely overtake you in another situation.
The problem of honesty in literature
Text by N.S. Leskova about Selivan seemed interesting to me. The writer raises an important moral problem in it - honesty. The narrator had to spend the night in the house of Selivan, whom everyone considered a robber and thief (prev. 1).
When she and her father discovered that they had forgotten their aunt’s box of money, they thought that the “robber” was already far away. Imagine their surprise when Selivan returned the box. He didn’t even take any money from there (sentences 17–18).
The author finally convinces us of Selivan’s integrity when he refuses the reward. Thanks to this incident, everyone was convinced that the hero was an honest person. The writer's position is clear to me.
Honesty is one of the important personality qualities. And your actions can change the attitude of society. I agree with the writer that honest people deserve praise and respect.
I will prove my point by turning to works of fiction. Let's turn to the novel by A.S. Pushkin's " The Captain's Daughter ". Grinev, having broken free, lost a hundred rubles to Zurin in billiards. Perhaps Zurin was wrong, because he saw that in front of him was a very young man. He even deliberately got the young man drunk and praised his performance.
The next morning, Grinev realized the irresponsibility of his behavior, but he repaid the debt, despite Savelich’s resistance. It seems to me that the hero acted honestly. Reflecting on this problem, I remember one parable. A tramp found a wallet in the market containing one hundred gold coins.
Being an honest man, he gave his find to the lost one, hoping for a reward. However, the merchant accused him of stealing some of the money. The dispute was decided by a judge who gave all the gold to the poor man. He explained this by saying that the wallet that the poor man found contained one hundred gold pieces, and the one that the merchant lost contained two hundred. This means, the judge decided, someone else lost this wallet.
Thus the poor man was rewarded for his honesty. Thus, the problem of honesty is relevant at any time. And there have always been people who acted honestly, and others who wanted to appropriate for themselves what belonged to others. The choice always remains with the person.
pros
What gives a person such quality? Much:
- freedom - there is no pretense, cowardice, no need to be hypocritical and curry favor with anyone;
- a chance to achieve the triumph of justice, fairness;
- honor and respect of the environment;
- personal growth, increased self-esteem;
- improvement of well-being.
Health effects
It is a proven fact that this trait contributes to improved well-being. Let's look at ways to improve this:
Method 1 – increasing self-esteem.
Numerous experiments by University of Massachusetts psychologist Feldman made it possible to find out that people cannot live without lies. They have to lie every 10 minutes. And the main reason is the desire to embellish, to look more competent, friendlier. A person wants to be admired by others. And the explanation for this phenomenon is banally simple - the desire to thus arouse interest in one’s person on the part of other people. After all, according to many, how they live in reality and their actions are of no interest to anyone. But the paradox is that honesty itself helps to increase a person’s self-esteem. It is sincerity that evokes reciprocal acceptance and sympathy, which helps improve such quality as self-sufficiency.
Method 2 – reducing the degree of anxiety.
Constant lying becomes a human habit. But at the same time, he is terribly afraid that he will be caught in deception. Enormous mental and energetic efforts provoke the deceiver to constantly remain in stress and anxiety. A person is constantly guarding his reputation. He is afraid of mistakes, embarrassment, and the level of anxiety is growing every day.
An honest person does not need to strain his psyche so much. There is no need to elaborate in inventions and different explanations. He spends his time and internal resources on more pleasant things than inventing stories and details for verisimilitude. Such people feel natural in any situation. They have the energy and emotional health for the other, the better and the nobler.
Method 3 – improving overall well-being.
Research by psychology professor Kelly in two groups of volunteers showed that those who lied constantly
health problems were periodically observed, and honest participants in the experiment felt excellent. People who told the truth stopped having headaches and throat pains, stopped having attacks of nausea and dizziness, etc. And before participating in the study, all this was quite common. As for the group of “deceivers,” there were no changes in their health status. They still had to cope with various ailments.
Having received such results, Kelly decided to become the subject of research herself. Namely, stop lying about any, even minor, reason for three winter months. And she was amazed that during the entire winter she did not get sick even once. After all, before this, the cold was her constant companion during the cold season. Her energy and cheerfulness at that time could be envied. But that's not all. Previously, she constantly did not get enough sleep and felt overwhelmed. After the cessation of lies, even in small things, a short night's sleep gave vigor and good health.
As we can see, honesty can work wonders.
Being honest with yourself and the golden mean
If we dislike a person, we try not to notice him and limit communication with him to a minimum. This
The same applies to honesty with oneself. And this is the key to mental health. After all, untruth, even a minor lie is capable of destruction. It destroys strength, energy, everything positive and gives rise to fears.
Lies have many faces. We will not now touch on the moral side of the nature of untruth, lying for salvation. Let’s think about whether people are always truthful to themselves. We often lie to ourselves and close our eyes to surrounding events, actions and things and what is going on inside us. It's more convenient this way. Often the reason is the fear of admitting something, the reluctance to fully understand and analyze actions. We think it’s easier this way, deceiving ourselves and destroying. If you neither see nor acknowledge the problem, then it doesn’t exist. But this is not true either. Paradoxically, realizing this, they still do not stop lying.
And to stop lying - you need to start making efforts to get rid of obstacles and shortcomings. Until we stop lying, we are prisoners of self-justification and self-deception, irresponsibility for our lives. Justifying oneself and one's actions is man's most insidious enemy. And many internally justify themselves for their baseness, deception, and abomination. This also applies to criminals who try to justify the atrocities they have committed. We are talking about negotiations with conscience.
Every day, living and working in conditions we don’t like, doing things we don’t like in an environment of misunderstanding, we destroy our dreams and hopes. All this leads to burnout, fatigue, stressful situations, and quarrels. The realities of life dictate their own rules. And sometimes it is very difficult to achieve the golden mean between duplicity with a complete lack of truthfulness and uncompromisingness with a lack of measure. And this is honesty. But if you manage to find it, then you get freedom.
What kind of dishonesty is there?
It is somewhat difficult to give a precise definition of the word “dishonesty”, because it includes the following concepts:
- lie,
- slander,
- fraud,
- theft.
Lie
It is an integral part of the life of almost every person. Real life is like this: either they deceive you, or you are deceived. A lie is the communication of false information to a person who wants or needs to know the truth. In this way, the liar misleads his opponent, hides important information from him, and embellishes reality.
Read more: About self-love and attractiveness
Psychologist Natalya Tolstaya about the motives of lying and why people are forced to lie in videos:
Distorting the truth is the main occupation of a liar. As a rule, lying causes censure from society, although there is no person in the world who has not used a lie at least once in his life.
There is a morally justifiable lie when lying for the greater good. For example, a doctor who does not tell a patient a fatal diagnosis in order to protect him from a blow.
There is a whole list of rules that will help you determine whether your opponent is lying or not.
- Often a liar does not remember everything he said, which means that inconsistencies can be found in his words.
- Unexpected questions unsettle a liar and force him to chaotically come up with answers.
- Change in behavior. If a person fussed, became nervous and began to behave completely differently, it means that he is hiding something.
- False emotions are easy to recognize; you just need to carefully monitor your interlocutor.
- Intuition has saved people from mistakes more than once; in this matter you can rely on your seventh sense; as a rule, it does not fail.
- Analyze what you hear. This technique will help separate the wheat from the chaff, in our case, true information from lies.
Slander
This is false information about a person or event, disseminated with the intent to undermine reputation, offend or harm. Slander is often called by another word, namely “gossip.” Both cause harm to the one at whom it is directed. A person who slanderes others may be punished for his false words.
The purpose of slander can be anything, but often a person is driven by envy or self-interest.
Fraud
This is a crime committed with the aim of taking possession of property, a violation of the trust of another person. Anyone can become a victim of scammers; honest and very trusting citizens are considered especially vulnerable. Dishonesty has become the norm, so it is not surprising that the world is full of people who want to make as much money as possible from the misfortune of others.
Theft
People steal for various reasons, among them are: organizational, social, economic and political issues. A person who is engaged in appropriating someone else’s property does not respect law, morality and religion. He may be guided by the desire to appropriate someone else’s property in order to satisfy his own needs, as a result of aggressive behavior or an unhealthy craving for hoarding.
Clinical psychologist Veronika Stepanova on the nature of kleptomania as a form of addiction in the video:
How to become an honest person?
Most young boys and girls begin to cheat at a very young age. Having become stronger, deception turns into a negative quality of a person’s personality – Deceiver, Liar.
As a rule, life and age itself make a person honest. As a deceitful person grows up, relying on the principles of deception and receiving material benefits from this, he subsequently loses a lot. I want to say the following - Lies and deception will 100% be revealed. Troubles and damage to you will be many times greater! However, if you read this now, you won’t believe me! This is the essence of man - he checks everything himself! By the way, this is the law of development and progress of humanity. If everyone were correct and honest, we would still be hunting mammoths.
By the way, when they tell the truth, they often put their right hand to their heart!
Why do we lie to ourselves?
Lying is a defensive reaction of our psyche, which reduces the intensity of negative experiences. In such cases, the person takes actions on an unconscious level to avoid the problem. Because of these defense mechanisms, our brains are programmed to deceive ourselves.
For example, a person needs to do some important and complex work that requires a lot of effort and time. But he is not in the mood to start it. Then the following can be observed in his behavior: postponing the task until later, trying to shift this task to another person, devaluing this task, starting to do less important things in order to refer to being busy, etc. This is exactly how the defense mechanisms of our psyche work.
