Honesty is a quality many see as admirable, and when we meet someone who seems honest, we tend to view them as a good person - a trusting person.

I try to live my life honestly to the point of bluntness at times, and that means I am even honest in situations that don’t benefit me. I used to hold that quality close, but lately I have been questioning the alleged integrity it supposes to bring.

At a job I recently held, I requested a couple days off and planned a schedule as asked of me to make sure things run smoothly when I was to be gone. I informed the company that I would be taking that time to myself. I was genuinely taken aback when my time off had been denied without reason.

I told some close friends beforehand and they advised not to be honest - to wait until the days came up and call off sick. I said no on the assumption that honesty equaled respect for my time and due to the loyalty that I had for the company, I did not want to leave them struggling last minute. So why had I been denied the time, when others would have lied about being sick and gotten their time off? My friends seemed to know something I didn’t.

Even with that instance, recently I’ve realized that I am not entirely honest. Sometimes I tell people I am OK when I am not and I have told professors I need help when I was just too lazy to do it by myself. I stand by open communication then close off from people - is that what honest people do? If I’m actually not honest and just mostly honest, and I still have these white lies that we all tell hidden within, am I honest? And if I am not, then I question if I should just lie in other instances, too, for my benefit.

Unfortunately, if I’m “mostly” honest, it’s not exactly something I can choose. I forget that we are just human and come with a couple inconsistencies. There are Buddhists that don’t practice every teaching every single day and are still Buddhist. There are rocket scientists who slip up and forget to factor in gravity and are still rocket scientists.

Sometimes the qualities we each have in life do not benefit us, but I guess that’s OK. What’s really amazing is when we find people who have the same qualities and recount on the memories those qualities brought us - the pain and the wonder.

I was around 14 when I gave an elder man a $20 bill back after he gave me too much change for some potatoes I bought. He smiled and said it made his day. It doesn’t have to be huge - it’s something.