I sometimes wonder about my honesty. I don’t think that I am dishonest, exactly. Rather, I have a very black and white view of the world, and when I’m not completely honest (even if it is in an effort to save someone’s feelings) I feel like I have failed. Strangely enough, I do tell a lot of little while lies, to grease the social wheels as it were. For example, when I went to the doctor last week, I told the people at my job that it was because of some problems with my knees (which I do have) rather than saying I was going to see about being put on anti-depression medication. I don’t think that I did anything wrong in telling this lie, but I still feel like I failed myself.

Yesterday I proved my honestly pretty clearly to myself. I had recently won an eBay auction for an MP3 player add-on to my Handspring PDA. I received the package last week, and I’ve been using it ever since. On Tuesday of this week I received a notification that a package was waiting for me at the post office. When I picked it up yesterday, I realized that the eBay seller had accidently shipped me another MP3 player. As I walked home, I debated with myself about what I should do. Sending it back would be a big hassle and would be quite expensive. (Shipping from Canada to the US is a good deal more then shipping from the US to Canada.) It would have been easy for me not to say anything to the seller. But being a good person, deep down in my soul, I knew I had to tell them, with the proviso that they covered shipping. The seller thanked me for my honesty, and the package will be going back this afternoon.

So, I think that I am an honest person. Sometimes little white lies are okay, but I also need to be aware of just how often I tell them and to who. (quanta, sweetheart, I don’t lie to you… much. 😉 )