honestly

As a child a favorite phrase of mine was, "say what you mean and mean what you say." This came to mind yesterday as I was giving my sister Lizzie a hard time for not saying what she meant. Instead she was relying on the Jr. Higher's "you know what I meant" whine. To which I quickly retorted, "no, I don't."

This quick interchange got me to thinking, how I still value this childhood sentiment. How I wish people would just get to the point, state their feelings, and mean not only what they say, but realize the effects of their actions.

Lizzie is not really just using a Jr. High fall back, often we use the same reasoning..."they'll figure out what I meant."

What if instead of living with this assumption that others will go through the work of deciphering what we are actually trying to say, we just man up and say what it is that we really want to say?

The implications are many.

Is honesty really the best policy? I don't know. I want to believe that it is. I want to trust that if I were able to take on the difficult work of only saying and acting in absolute truth that it would result in better things for all involved. I just don't know.