“Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking,
truth living, and truth loving.” —James E. Faust
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Three years ago, a pastor from a different city accepted a position at a church in Davao. A week after his arrival, he chose to explore the city. He boarded a jeepney and handed the driver a crisp twenty-peso bill. With numerous passengers aboard, it took the driver two minutes to return the pastor’s change.
Upon counting the change, the pastor realized that the driver had inadvertently given him one peso more than he was owed. As he pondered his next move, he thought, “You should return the peso. Keeping it would be unethical.”
Then he reflected, “Oh, never mind, it’s just a peso. Who would be concerned about such a small sum? Besides, the driver charges a high fare; he will hardly notice it. Consider it a ‘gift from God’ and remain silent.”
As he neared his destination, he approached the driver and returned the peso. “Here, you gave me too much change,” he stated.
The driver, smiling, responded, “Aren’t you the new pastor in our vicinity? I have been contemplating where to worship lately. I merely wanted to observe your reaction to receiving too much change. I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”
This brings us to the subject of honesty. “Honesty,” says American president Thomas Jefferson, “is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.” Film actress Angelina Jolie agrees. In an interview, she was quoted as saying, “I’m just honest, I like that I don’t have to worry about what I say. I really don’t have the time or energy to pretend and I don’t want to live that way.”
Dr. Madison Sarratt, who taught mathematics at Vanderbilt University for many years, before giving a test, would admonish his class something like this: “Today, I am giving two examinations – one in trigonometry and the other in honesty. I hope you will pass them both. If you must fail one, fail trigonometry. There are many people in the world who can’t pass trigonometry, but there is no one who can’t pass the examination of honesty.”
If you are in business, be sure to practice honestly. As Sophocles admonishes, “Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” Joseph Sugarman has the same view, “Each time you are honest and conduct yourself with honesty, a success force will drive you toward greater success. Each time you lie, even with a little white lie, there are strong forces pushing you toward failure.”
“There is no well-defined boundary between honesty and dishonesty,” American author O. Henry pointed out. “The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other.”
This reminds me of the story of two women riding a bus. One of them realized she hadn’t paid her fare yet. “I’ll go right up and pay for it,” she said. “Why bother?” her companion told her. “You got away with it, so what?”
“I’ve found that honesty always pays,” the other said virtuously, and went up to pay the driver. After that, she went back to her place and told her companion. “See, I told you. Honesty really pays. I handed the driver 20 pesos and he gave me 40 pesos change.”
These days, people look at being honest in different ways. For instance, ethics is very important to successful businessmen. One executive explains it this way; “For example, an old customer paid his account today with a five hundred peso bill. As he was leaving, I discovered that he had mistakenly given me two five hundred peso bills stuck together. Immediately, a question of ethics arose: should I tell my partner?”
But honesty still abounds here and abroad. A taxi driver returns the money that was left in the vehicle he was driving. A laundry woman who delivered the diamond ring left in the pocket of the pants she was washing to the owner herself. A high school student who failed his final examination because he didn’t want to cheat, unlike his classmates.
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them,” Mark Twain said. In the mid-1980’s researchers at Cleveland State University made a startling discovery. They conducted an experiment by creating two fictitious job candidates David and John.
The candidates had identical resumes and letters of reference. The only difference was that John’s letter included the sentence “Sometimes, John can be difficult to get along with.” They showed the resumes to a number of personnel directors.
Which candidate did the personnel directors overwhelmingly prefer? Difficult to get along with, John. The researchers concluded the criticism of John made praise of John more believable. Admitting John’s wort actually helped sell John. Admitting flaws gives a person more credibility.
Now, I know a lot of people when they are on the brink of dying, they will be honest to admit and tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. For as Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, puts it: “With death comes honesty.”
Should you wait for that day to come before you become honest? “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
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