To Truth and Honesty
The hardest thing in the world for me to do is to listen to that quiet little voice inside my head that speaks the truth.
Why is this? My head is full of other loud voices* that remind me to conform and please others. It’s also full of noisy advertising like: buy a new car or be hip like the cool kids. Or, you should worry about pleasing Mom or make the boss happy. And then there’s also the incessant money, sex, and rock & roll.
I feel like my personal growth for 2008 mostly came about when I do listen to the little voice of truth. My blunders happened when I don’t listen to the voice of truth and cave-in to the louder easier to hear clatter-chatter. (By the way, I would say that blunders are really character building opportunities.)
So what for 2009? Actions and thoughts based on thou-shalts or everyone is doing it is no longer going to cut it. Rather than looking externally for the truth, I shall look inward – and listen to that quiet little voice that knows what I really want. Note that the voice of truth is not necessarily going to give you the same answer as the voice of reason! What you want to do with it is your business, but it is important to acknowledge that truth – no matter how crazy, silly, selfish, boring, exciting. Listening to it lets you move on, and get on with whatever you need to be doing.
There are two ways that I found that works for me to get at the little voice. Method one, I could shut everything down (no music, TV, internet) and just listen; a variant of this is for me to formulate it in a long email to a friend (again sans distraction). Method two, I have someone that I trust throw “hardball” questions at me and I try to “catch” or answer them; the trusted friend should poke hard to ensure that the question has been answered as truthfully and honestly as possible. Method two is kind of like looking in a mirror to see inside ourselves.
The thing is, truth and knowledge really resides in us all this time. My endless reading, web surfing, and listening to people has cluttered my head and made it harder to get to this built-in voice of truth. Probably should cut down or at least be more selective about what I let myself read or listen to; we might deal with media-dieting in a future post.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to wish you all the best, in your quest for love, truth, and happiness for the new year! When in doubt, listen for the little voice.
(*Note: The voices are metaphoric and I really don’t hear-hear them.)
