Honesty

The hardest person to be honest with is ourselves.

Not because we lack the ability to tell the truth, but because we are deeply attached to what we already know. Our collected knowledge—our beliefs, habits, and justifications—is how we navigate the world. We cherish it. We protect it. And that makes self-honesty far more difficult than honesty with others.

Being sincere and truthful with other people is relatively easy. We do it to maintain relationships. To keep people around us. To make sure they continue to believe in us, trust us, and see us in a certain light. There is incentive to be honest outwardly.

But inwardly, we lie constantly.

We bullshit ourselves all the time just to get through the day.

We overeat, overdrink, overconsume media, and neglect the important things we know we should be doing. And we manage to do all of this by lying to ourselves. Not because we don’t know better—but because we do.

That’s the uncomfortable truth: we know what we should be doing. We know what the “bad stuff” is. And yet we do it anyway, because we are experts at justifying our behavior.
“I’ll be better tomorrow.”
“This is the last time.”
“Life is short.”

These sound reasonable. They feel harmless. But they are lies.

So we turn outward. We go to other people for help and guidance. We say we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We ask others to fix us, to point the way, to provide clarity we claim we lack.

But that rarely works.

It doesn’t work because the problem isn’t ignorance—it’s dishonesty. And we are very, very good at lying. We twist our sense of reality and bend it to our will to make life more palatable, more comfortable, more survivable.

Why do we do this?

Because it’s built into us. It’s biology. It’s psychology. It’s a survival mechanism.

So how do we know when we are lying to ourselves?

We know because the lie always moves us away from living a good life.

And yes, “a good life” is subjective. But in this context, it isn’t abstract. It’s practical. It’s being physically healthy. Eating well. Maintaining strong, honest relationships. Taking care of what matters. Doing the things we already know improve our lives.

Anytime our actions consistently move in the opposite direction, self-deception is at work.

The lie isn’t always loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It shows up quietly as permission. As delay. As comfort. As choosing what’s easy now over what’s good long-term. And because the justification comes from our own mind, it feels reasonable—even responsible.

That’s what makes it dangerous.

The moment we stop asking whether our actions align with the life we claim we want is the moment honesty disappears, not with others, but with ourselves. And without that honesty, no amount of advice, motivation, or external help can correct our course.

A good life doesn’t require perfection. It requires awareness. It requires noticing when we’re telling ourselves a story that excuses behavior we already know is wrong for us.

The work begins there.