Be truthful towards self

When we talk of values and the culture of our society, it includes many aspects of the day to day life of the citizens of the nation. A very important thing which comes to my mind is the virtue of honesty which is expected from all in all kinds of relationship. This may be the case in the family, work place, friends and other relations. When the children are young they are very honest and as the time passes and they are exposed to the worldly affairs,many things around them change. Many people feel that telling a lie has become more common now and this is not setting a good example for the children. I was forced to think about it more seriously because of an incident which took place a few days back. This is related to the relationship between a customer and the sales person. The customer was in the process of purchasing a vehicle of a particular make. Few dealers were approached by him and some of them approached him when they came to know about the requirement of the customer. Some of the sales persons were very honest in putting across their proposal but others who were considered very aggressive in their approach towards selling the vehicles, made some promises in terms of discount or better services etc. The sad part of the story is that those promises could not have been kept and the same was proved later on. But the customer was to purchase the vehicle so he settled with the one who appeared to be honest in his approach. But unfortunately it was discovered later that he was also not very honest and did tell a lie on some occasions. This made me to think whether people should believe each other` s words or not? The market driven strategies and the maximum sale syndrome has made us so insensitive that many of us rarely feel bad for a lie told by us. This gentleman about whom I wrote would not know that he told a lie because this has become the habit. Is it that we are trying to make a fool of each other and enjoying that? In the process nobody believes the other person, which again is the worst thing which can happen to us. This is one example of a particular relationship but if we analyse it seriously, is that not happening in other relationships also? Newspaper reports related to the detectives hired by the husband or the wife to check the loyalty of the spouse is not something good.  Faith is the result of the belief and the trust for which the basic requirement is honesty and truthfulness. We should be honest to ourselves as well as others also. By being little extra smart you may win a customer but in the process might lose many friends and your dear ones. I am more worried about this because many of the people who at times are that honest because of some compulsions develop this habit and as they may be the father, brother, son or husband of somebody so that relationship also do not remain unaffected. We may not do anything deliberately but might not be very true to self and others because of the habit. The other repercussion of the same is the impact on the upbringing of the children in the family. Not only this, the children who may superficially appear to be ignorant about the case do learn these things unknowingly which again prove to be very negative for their future. We should try to introspect about ourselves and then decide about others. Do we not tell a lie to somebody by telling that the senior person in the profession or in the family had asked that particular work to be completed by this time? We use the name of the father or our superior for getting some work done by our juniors. Though this might have been done in the interest of the organization or the family but the approach is not right. Why should not we be honest to tell a person that this work should be done because this is the responsibility of that person to do it all? Why should we take shelter in the name of somebody else for the sake of keeping self in good books of our colleagues? If we adults can develop the habit of being as truthful as possible then the children would not be required to be taught the values of our nation of which we all are very proud. The small things which we do in our daily life can be the starting point. For example, if you are being interviewed for some post and you could not answer a question then admit the truth. Why should you try to hide the reality by saying certain things which might deceive the other person and you may get the job but at a very high cost of losing your self esteem? Here again the person might not have done it knowingly but the wrong has been done and to prove the wrong right he/she will have to speak more lies. So, we all must try our level best that we do not deceive anybody and are true to self. And the fact is that if we are true to ourselves then we would be true to others as well. Let us start with the things at home and then outside and be honest to all our family members. This will make a positive impact on our thinking and then the same will be applied by us in the external world also. I should not be misunderstood for casting a shadow of doubt on everyone but then we all get involved in such things at one or the other point of time. We must try to our level best for the future of our children because our habits and the actions affect them the most and we do not have a right to play with the future of the nation. This will be a great service to the nation and the mankind.