honesty, such a lonely word

For the most part, I tend to accept people and all of their flaws , because we are after all, flawed humans. And I myself have many faults and flaws, so how can I expect more from others than what I have to offer ?   Besides, perfect people are arrogant . Arrogant  in that they only imagine themselves to be perfect .

There is one thing that I expect from people, myself included, and that is "honesty" .  Honesty in all things, not just the things we want to be honest about.  I've often been told that it is better to withhold the truth than to hurt someone with the truth.  I disagree. Truth is sometimes painful, but that is a pain we can,  for the most part, rise above and heal from.

I can accept painful truths.

What I cannot accept are lies and evasions .  A lie is a lie is a lie and there really are no such thing as pretty white lies.  Lies hurt and they hurt much worse than painful truths, because to me, it is very difficult  to rise above the pain brought on by a lie.  And it destroys trust . And I think we would all agree that once trust is destroyed, it is difficult to rebuild it.  I think this is why so many relationships fail.

And then we have evasions.  Some people do everything they can to avoid the truth. When asked about something or caught doing something, they  will run around in circles trying to evade the obvious rather than just being honest and speaking the truth, painful or not.  Evasions , in my opinion, are nothing more than lies that aren't spoken. And evasions, in the end, only postpone the painful truth.  I would rather get it out of the way so we can rise above and move on.

Honesty, it's such a lonely word.