Truth

I had a boss one time - a mentor, really - who told me that one day, the truth was going to get me in trouble. 

She knew that I believed that you can't really face the world unless you're honest about it. She knew that I had a habit of speaking the quiet parts out loud. She knew that I wasn't afraid to tell someone the thing they were trying to avoid. And I, of course, knew these things about myself, too. 

Christianity is and always has been truth + grace, and I think it's fair to say that I have always leaned a little more toward the truth side. It's the way I'm wired; it's the way my brain works. I have to be extremely diligent about grace, very intentional. 

I tend to be a little reckless sometimes with truth. 

I laugh a little as I type this because if we're being honest (and that's kind of the point, isn't it?), I struggle to understand - on a theoretical level - why anyone would be opposed to the truth. Why anyone would not want to hear it. Why anyone would prefer to waste their energies trying to operate in a framework that isn't solid in its foundation. 

And yet...

...I am so, so very good at lying to myself. 

You would think that would mean that I'm good at making up stories to make me feel better about my failures, but that's not true. I'm good at making up facts that make me feel better about my failures. 

I'm good at crafting theories about the human condition that make me fit right in. I'm good at casting judgments on the way the world works to convince myself that it's okay that I don't fit into it. I'm good at approximating completely false statistics in my head to justify - with math - the things I am inclined to believe in my weakness. 

And I'm good at convincing myself to believe me. 

Now, here's the thing: I would still tell you that I am an honest person. I would. And I would tell you that this is because I understand, at least at some level, that the things I am telling myself are lies. But the things I tell myself are not things I would tell you. The entire inner dialogue that I'm having in my head to justify myself...that's private. Nobody knows what silly, stupid, completely-made-up things I believe about myself and the way that I fit into the world around me. Those are not public sorts of things. They're just for me. 

So when I talk to you, I don't share those things. I still speak things that I know to be true, not things I have convinced myself of. And if you don't already understand how this happens from your own experience, I'm not sure I can explain it to you. But there's something inside of me that would never dream of lying to anyone...and yet, I am so very good at lying to myself. 

And then, believing me. Even though I know I'm a liar. 

And then, those words from my former boss, my mentor - "One of these days, the truth is going to get you in trouble..." 

And I never imagined it would happen like it did....