honesty means courage

[soccer7]

I have alot of fear, fear of rejection, fear of public speaking, fear of humiliation, fear of the dark, fear of success, fear of responsibilities, fear of being alone, ... and the list goes on.

I have adopted a few things to conquer my fears, one of which i believe is very empowering for me is the power of truth and honesty. I believe being straight forward is the key to become a greater person.

But currently i'm just a tab confused on the limits of honesty. Why can't we just walk up to someone and say

"Hi there, i like you, can you go out with me ?"

or "Hi, i find you a nice person, can i be your friend?"

or "Hey you, i never liked you all this time, even though i pretended to be nice to you at work i really hate you, why can't you be a better person ?"

Yeah i know the last one might get you a preordered knuckle sandwich, but why do we have to keep going around in circles with everything, why is being straight forward so hard these days ?

Now i'm not saying that you should go tell your friend
"Hey did you know your fat, why don't you go lose some weight fatty" or something similar, because that would just be a direct attact, an insult.

That's why i combine my honesty with my other lesson, which is
"if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything" instead of saying something that is false.

If they for example ask about their figure, i would probably say
"please don't take this personally, but i think your abit overweight"
there are nice ways of being honest. I've seen too many people wearing mask these days, trying to disquise themselves as a nice normal person who doesn't have any problems with anyone, always saying one thing while thinking something totally different.

I've seen these situations everywhere, i'm not saying i can do any of the three, but i'm trying to work myself to overcome my fear so that i can do it.

Though i have to say, there are situations that i would lie, for example i would lie if i find that the lie is for the benifit of another person, but i wouldn't lie for my self. For example if one of my close friend has commited something bad, and doesn't have the courage to own up, depending on the situation i would own up for him.

Do you guys think this is a good approach to conquering fear ?

[DarkSociologist]

From what you described as "being honest" is really just being selfish. If you walk up to someone and you say "hey, I like you. Do you want to go out?" then you are probably going to creep that person out and make them feel uncomfortable.

You sought to fulfill your desires, rather than even consider the desires of the other person. Simply telling someone something that you think is "honest" is not enough. You need to take the time and learn how to do it in such a way that the individual ends up agreeing with you.

For example, lets say that you are asking a person out. It is one thing to randomly walk up to a person and say "I like you. Will you go out with me?" It is a completely different thing to first get that person interested in you and make that person want to go out with you.

Don't be lazy by taking the easy way out by being "honest." There are a lot of emotions, motives, and perspectives involved in human interactions and they too must be considered before you decide to act.

[dally]

fear of rejection ,fear being humiliated is ego based. everyone see themselves as a cool dude and when you get shot down or embaresed its because of a bruised ego. alot of it is learning to live in your own reallity of life and destroy your ego.

i think its not that bad of a idea to tell someone hey i like you. i dont know how far you will get with that kind of approach, its not what you say ,its how you say things.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by soccer7

If they for example ask about their figure, i would probably say
"please don't take this personally, but i think your abit overweight"
there are nice ways of being honest.

That's not one of the nice ways of being honest, soccer7.

[Antiventurecapital]

Originally Posted by soccer7

Why can't we just walk up to someone and say

"Hi there, i like you, can you go out with me ?"

or "Hi, i find you a nice person, can i be your friend?"

Good stuff!

If you wish to be labeled as the town weirdo.

[Antiventurecapital]

Hi, are you gonna finish dat sammiche?

[soccer7]

I realise that being honest given in my examples ealier can creep people out, and perhaps make them feel uncomfortable, thats why even till now i still can't do such a thing. Whats holding me back is fear. I fear being labled as the towns weirdo like Antiventurecapital mentioned.

I don't see how being straight forward is selfish however, isn't letting other people know in the nicest way possible how you feel about them is something you are doing for them, at the cost of being labled a wierdo by everyone ?
However being labled a wierdo isn't something i'm willing to risk at the moment.

By DarkSociologist : Simply telling someone something that you think is "honest" is not enough. You need to take the time and learn how to do it in such a way that the individual ends up agreeing with you.

I don't have the intention of making them agree with me, i just want to let people know how i feel about them. with the date example if she say no, then its fine, i'll find ways to impress her without being too wierd.

By DarkSociologist : Don't be lazy by taking the easy way out by being "honest." There are a lot of emotions, motives, and perspectives involved in human interactions and they too must be considered before you decide to act.

this is what i mean by going around in circles with everything. I thought that being honest was the hard way out, hehehe, since its so hard to do and all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by soccer7 View Post
If they for example ask about their figure, i would probably say
"please don't take this personally, but i think your abit overweight"
there are nice ways of being honest.

That's not one of the nice ways of being honest, soccer7.

Yeah, I didn't think that was such a good example either. an alternative is to tell white lies, as i mentioned before i would lie if its for the benifit of other people.

So all in all this to me is a good way to be better person theorically, but practically i'm not too sure how my reputation will hold.

hmmm, heres one, imagine what would it be like if you knew what the person you like thinks about you, imagine if he/she walks up to you to when your alone and tells you. Wheather he/she like you or not, wouldn't knowing be good, if she doesn't like you at least you can try to improve yourself somehow and try to impress her.

By Dally : i think its not that bad of a idea to tell someone hey i like you. i dont know how far you will get with that kind of approach, its not what you say ,its how you say things.

I guese it can be creepy depending on the way they say it. I don't know, maybe i'm just crazy, my life has been quite hectic since i tried to gather courage for this, i haven't done it yet, but man, does it require so much courage. thanks everyone for your inputs, i'm go gona relax abit.

[Andrew Brunelle]

In this crazy world, truth is not a good selling point in some situations. It used to be the universal law of nature, that truth was the only thing you can really trust, but what is truth? How can we identify truth vs. falsities in a non-subjective manner, to tell other people what they should do to improve themselves? Who are we to tell them how to live their lives based on our subjective observation of their life? If someone tells you to change your life, the "normal" response is defensiveness. Think about what you would do if someone were to go over and tell you the truth about your life, through their eyes, which does not and will not ever see the entire picture. So think about that, just throwing it out there. What is true to you may not be true to others. Truth is purely subjective.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by soccer7

But currently i'm just a tab confused on the limits of honesty. Why can't we just walk up to someone and say

"Hi there, i like you, can you go out with me ?"

You can. It just won't work. Because you liking her is kind of irrelevant from her perspective - she has to like you to want to go out.

First you have to demonstrate to her why you're worth going out with.

Originally Posted by soccer7

or "Hi, i find you a nice person, can i be your friend?"

I don't see anything wrong with this, assuming you've gotten to know them a bit. (And if you haven't gotten to know them, then saying you find them a nice person isn't honest).

Originally Posted by soccer7

or "Hey you, i never liked you all this time, even though i pretended to be nice to you at work i really hate you, why can't you be a better person ?"

Ugh. Yes, this could get you a preordered knuckle sandwich, but the main problem with it is it's just really, really vague. It's one step above "You're crap. Fix that immediately.".

I presume honesty matters to you because you want to communicate. And communication has bandwidth restrictions. The quoted comment is useless, but something more targetted like "Calling me juvenile nicknames really irritates me and I don't find it appropriate in the work environment. My name is 'Bob', please just call me that" is probably fine.

Originally Posted by soccer7

That's why i combine my honesty with my other lesson, which is "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything" instead of saying something that is false.

IMO that rule is a roundabout attempt to get to "if it's going to make things worse rather than better, then don't say anything".

eg. Just calling someone ugly isn't helpful, but telling someone they have spinach in their teeth (ie. a specific ugliness that they can easily do something about) is helpful.

Originally Posted by soccer7

If they for example ask about their figure, i would probably say "please don't take this personally, but i think your a bit overweight" there are nice ways of being honest.

In this case, someone's asked you for your opinion. If honesty is important to you, remember that your opinion is subjective and express it as an opinion. There's also often multiple truths/opinions available to balance out your honesty.

In this example, if you really feel the need to be honest, you could say "To my tastes you're a bit full in the hips but that outfit really flatters your legs." (or whatever).

[Another paragraph was to go here, but Andrew Brunelle basically just said it all ]

[Michael Chui]

1. Fear is an action, a process. It has an actor (yourself, in this case) and an object (someone else, for instance, or the act of public speaking, or a potential situation).

2. Fear is the process of alienating the actor from the object through the vehicle of ignorance. Your knowledge of the object diminishes and, as a result, you identify yourself as radically separated from the object. In the case of wanting to be someone's friend and "fearing rejection", you know less about the person and anticipate they will not want to be your friend, and thus you cannot imagine the two of you enjoying each other's company.

3. Fear is counteracted in its components through understanding and equality. You discover more and as a consequence feel closer. The understanding is entirely on your part. Again, in the case of a desired friendship, you need to understand human beings and feel like a human being, then you need to understand that person's culture, however vaguely, then their personal habits, and eventually they in their entirety.

4. Understanding is achieved through trial and error. Fail early, and fail often. Make lots of mistakes. Find out what works and what doesn't. Take that which is of substance and keep it; discard the rest. Move on, try again, and learn. If you want to pursue one person, talk to a thousand others first. Somewhere along the way, you'll figure it out.

5. When you figure it out, you won't be afraid anymore. We also call this empowerment.

6. Knowledge demands constant maintenance. You must regularly and continually update and expand your knowledge, or it will naturally degrade into ignorance. The human brain is not a computer system and will not store information infinitely; data disperses.

[Liara Covert]

Many individuals are conditioned to think too much. Why is it that people are so quick to doubt their first impression, so quick to judge, so quick to assume the worst? Why not re-program yourself to assume the opposite? I recommend Paul Arden's book, "Whatever you think, think the opposite."

[soccer7]

After reading the reply post i have come to understand a few things better and upgraded my thinking.

Being honest is a good trait, and being honest all the time is a great way to show that you have courage. However being honest can be confused with being overconfident and cocky, so it tends to creep people out allittle when you say go up to a stranger and tell them you like/hate them.

I will still be honest as much as i can, but i might have to think more carefully on how to be honest while not being creepy or mean about it.

And here i was, looking for a simple sollution to my social problem just by throwing the truth at it. hehehe.

[radeldudel]

Being honest can be good. But your example sentences are not only what you think is honest, they add a request to it.

Lemme rephrase them to show what I think would be better ways of 'being honest':

Originally Posted by soccer7

"Hi there, i like you, can you go out with me ?"

Make that "Hi there, I like you!".

Originally Posted by soccer7

"Hi, i find you a nice person, can i be your friend?"

Make that "Hi, I find you a nice person."

Originally Posted by soccer7

"Hey you, i never liked you all this time, even though i pretended to be nice to you at work i really hate you, why can't you be a better person ?"

Thats a bit more tricky. Usually I would see no great need to tell something negative without reason. Maybe if someone who you do not like keeps trying to make a date with you, something like "Sorry, but you are not my type, I don't think I could get along with you".

First: it's about you. It is your feeling, you feel drawn to someone, or repulsed. You, not the other one. So don't say something like "you are an *********************" even though everyone might agree with you. Say "I don't like you" in that case.

Second: don't add a request to your 'being honest'. It's like marching up to someone and saying 'gimme a buck'. Changing it to 'I like you. Now gimme a buck' does not make it friendlier at all.

If you want to be honest, be it, but don't use this as a foot in the door, a way to fire off a request. Thats a nono. It would make everyone feel like you only said the nice words to get off your request.

Originally Posted by soccer7

"Hey did you know your fat, why don't you go lose some weight fatty"

A simple "Uhm, excuse my direct question, but might it be you have gained a little weight?" would be better. Your example is, like you yourself said, an insult. Your other examples are hidden insults, too, pretending the other one is a simpleton to follow your requests just because you told them something nice before.

You might keep Steves last articles about polarity in mind, too. Either be honest as out-flow, say what you think. Or be honest as in-flow, say what you want. Don't mix them both


Of course, if you just want to conquer your fear, telling a 7' 200lbs kickboxer he's butt ugly might seem like a way to show off you got no fear (of pain)

Love!