Nothing but the truth!

3 of 10 in the series ‘Children Home Rules - They’re Not Just for Kids’

Here at W. Kim Tae Kwon Do, we have a set of rules that we give every child that joins our program.  This list is called Children Home Rules.  Basically, it’s a set of rules that aren’t any different from the rules that parents already have at home.  They aren’t new, but they serve as a handy tool for reinforcement.

Children Home Rule #3 - 

Children must be truthful at all times.

Pain is a funny thing.

Well, maybe not funny, but it is the thing that we are apprehensive about the most.

The lengths we go to avoid pain seemingly know no bounds.  This is most apparent in the imagination that we use to fabricate the “truth”.

At some point in our lives there has been a moment (or moments) where we shaded the truth, told half the truth or just omitted the truth.  Our parents always became more upset with us when they found out that what was told them was untrue and the punishment usually became more severe as the result of that.

It’s interesting because once pain becomes a reality, we can start to cope with it.  While we still don’t wish it to be a part of our lives, it becomes something we can grasp.

Pride comes into it as well.  I’ve experienced kids who will lie about something that wasn’t their fault or maybe it was an accident that led to a mild catastrophe and they are convinced that their mother or father will punish them for something that is in reality, inconsequential.

We want to look good in the eyes of others.  We are all fallible people, we all make mistakes and accidents do happen.

Pride becomes a bigger problem, however, when we take that to a different level and want to be perceived as something we are not.  We want to feel good.  We want people to like us so we embellish parts of our lives, giving people an idea of us rather than showing them who we are in reality.  We’ll even lie on behalf of others so that we look ‘cool’ to them, or we lie to mislead to better our own position.

We end up lying to ourselves and become convinced that this new truth is reality and our decision making skills become poorer for it.

Then it gets even more complicated.

You can’t keep up with all the falsehoods you’ve told and the fake reality you’ve constructed comes crashing down around you.  Then the pain that you’ve avoided for so long becomes excruciating.

The truth is so much more simple.  Yes, there can be pain associated with the truth, however, accepting that you are human and fallible, owning up to your mistakes and accepting consequences, even from accidents, will only serve to make you stronger, more resilient and viewed as a person with integrity.

So, we need to reinforce that, while the truth might hurt in the short term, the effects from it are much more beneficial in the long term.

Photo Credit: Brett Jordan