To Tell the Truth

With Mabon right around the corner, I’ve been inspired to do some fall cleaning. I’m a strange mix of pack rat and neat freak. Things get neatly filed away in drawers for a little while, then I go on a cleaning binge and get rid of it all. I’d sure save a lot of time and money if I skipped the step of buying things.

Anyway, I came across a couple of old issues of Yoga Journal. One of them (Issue 167, June 2002) had an interesting article on the practice of satya, or truth. The general gist of the article was finding a way to speak the truth without hurting another person’s feelings. The author made an argument for taking time to pick our words, and filtering them “so they do the least harm — and the most good.” What a wonderful idea!

Of course, this got me thinking about the Rede. “An it harm none, do as thou wilt.” How about telling the truth, but not brutally. Surely, in most cases, there are polite ways to tell someone how you feel. You might hate your job, but you don’t need to tell you co-workers that you think only someone with no skill could enjoy it. Saying that it isn’t for you would be more then good enough, I think. But, when finding those polite words, try not to bend things into a little white lie.