The Truth About Brutal Honesty

In my experience people who pride themselves in being brutally honest tend to value and to be known for, their brutality more than their honesty. Their pride tends to reside more in how they tell the truth more than the truth they tell. Their sting outweighs the message. I have also found that such people tend to be self-righteous. They often believe they are the only ones ‘brave enough’ to tell the truth. Often their burden is that they be the ones to tell this truth more than that you learn this truth. If even a little part of you wants to tell the truth so that you can say you are the one who ‘told’ then your motive is already flawed, especially when the very same truth being told is unsolicited. Now I am not saying let us not speak the truth. I just strongly believe the truth should not wound or harm. I am proposing that it will land and stick better when spoken in love and when the motive is completely about the other and not you. Otherwise what you leave behind is the sting of your brutality. The truth will hurt if it is presented as sandpaper rather than a mirror. Your intent should be love, more than ‘truth’.

Despite popular belief, straight talk does break friendships. Being honest should not isolate instead it should draw people into a circle of trust. This belief that people do not want to hear the truth is unsound. In many cases people want to hear the truth, they just do not want to be brutalised with it. ‘Sandwiching’ the truth between compliments does not help either. A drop of poison in a glass of milk renders the entire glass poisonous. It does not matter how many nice things you say before and after you have delivered ‘your truth’ the focus will be on the sting. Just because you smiled when you delivered the ‘brutal truth’ does not mean it hurt any less. One will still feel and get disturbed by the piece of gravel in a sandwich no matter how fresh the bread.

The problem is that most human truth is subjective. There is always an element of your opinion in the very truth you are delivering, which makes it ‘your truth’ instead of ‘the truth’. I find that the truth people tend to be ‘brutal’ about is often their own subjective truth. When you find yourself going on about what you would have done if it were you, then you know that you have made yourself the standard and that your ‘truth’ is subjective. Objective truth does not need to be explained much, it is universally known and the consequences are universal as well. A red traffic light means stop, there is nothing personal about that. You need not premise it with your own opinion when telling someone and there is no need to give an entire thesis explaining why their not stopping is wrong.

If you need to be the one delivering the truth then your aim should be to merely make an observation or state a fact. The truth should not be accompanied by a directive. You can’t compel or guilt or expect people to act according to your will just because you have told them ‘the truth’. The truth should lead to people making up their own minds on how to proceed, in light of what you have just made them conscious of. So the truth can be delivered with no expectations. Children do this really well. When children tell the truth there is an authenticity that goes with it. They are merely stating something as the see it and are open to the possibility of being wrong in their observations. They have no vested interest in how you react, in fact in many cases they get surprised at how you react. You see, for them, they are merely making an observation in passing. There is no preamble to the truth they speak, there is no planning of delivery, there is no pomp and ceremony around the truth. They just open their mouths and speak it in the moment. I also don’t know of many children who go around feeling proud of how ‘honest’ they are for you see to them honesty is not a badge. Their aim is to express not to impress.

So next time you want to tell someone the brutal truth then maybe you should stop and think about whether you are prepared to be responsible for the emotional breakdown that you may cause and are committed to then helping the person recover from your brutal delivery.

So what am I saying? I am saying that the opposite of brutal truth is not lying, it is gentle truth. I am saying that life is tough and people are already burdened with a lot so before you deliver your truth think about whether it is really necessary, whether it is kind and whether your approach will cause more harm than good and if you can’t find a more compassionate way of delivering this truth then maybe you should not be the one to do so.

Yes the truth shall set you free and if you are Christian then you know that The Truth is Christ. When someone finds Christ in the truth that you are telling, then maybe, just maybe, you have given them an objective, constructive truth, delivered in love.

But hey, that’s just my opinionated subjective truth!