Honesty

Maybe I'm just a simple minded person and I lack the required complexity of thought to do otherwise but I think it probably has more to do with how I was raised, but I'm of the school that a person should say what they mean, and mean what they say. Always.

I mean for as much as I some times complain about certain family members and how rude/hurtful they can be with their extremely blunt opinionatedness, the upside is that you never ever have to worry about what they really think. Because you already know. You might know better than you ever cared to but you're not worried that something might be wrong even though they say otherwise, because believe you me, if it was wrong, they'd tell you. Probably loudly and in an incredibly non-politically correct fashion.

And while that can get wearisome, the positive thing that can be said for it is that it is completely honest. It might not be kind or tactful but by golly its honest. We shoot from the hip but man do we shoot straight.

I almost never lie. I might not tell the whole truth if its not completely necessary and if doing so will spare a persons feelings. I work extremely hard to be tactful and to word things the right way. Because I believe that words matter. I believe you can't take some things back. And I believe in being honest.

And so because this is the way I was raised and the way that I function, there are few things that elevate my stress like people who don't communicate in this fashion. Especially, when I'm faced with a situation where to maintain the status quo, which is expected of me in this situation, I am forbidden to communicate directly about a problem.

I've had this experience once before and I swore I'd never let it happen again. I regret to this day that I didn't tell the "status quo" people to go stick a fork in it and go have a sit down with the person I've got the problem with.

But the big difference is that in that situation the person I was having a problem with was my social peer. In the current situation the person is my social superior. It is critically important that I am above all respectful. And clearly according to this persons rules of decorum I've already failed at that a few times.

But I'm afraid if I don't deal with it directly the problem will keep happening. And then I will keep feeling awful and stressed and hurt and angry.

And so I'm faced with the fun, exciting, terrifying, nerve wracking, and stressful of very prayerfully trying to figure out what the heck to say and how to say it. Wish me luck.