Honesty is a funny thing when we only employ it when it’s convenient, or in bite sized, digestible doses that only serve to soften the information we’re delivering for our own sake – we want the receiver to react in a way that we’re comfortable with, and at a time and place, or pace, that works best for us, and then we congratulate ourselves for being honest.
Maybe part of honesty is accepting that someone else’s reaction to the whole truth is as much their right as the actions that necessitated said honesty were our right, and our rights extend to choosing whether or not to subscribe to that reaction, or to choosing to be honest with that person in the first place.
Maybe honesty isn’t something owed, but a gift we can choose to bestow. Whatever we choose, I hope we can start by being honest with ourselves about, among many other things, honesty itself.