Honesty or Kindness
If you followed along on social media last week, I had a cute little moment.
I shared a video that I named #DiscountTireThoughts (aka some thoughts I had while getting my tires changed at Discount Tire) & created an Instagram poll with the question - which do you value more: honesty or kindness? And why?
To my surprise, both were neck in neck. One minute honesty would be more, then people started voting more for kindness, and back, and forth, and back, and forth.
This is actually a topic I've been pondering for months now. I'm currently re-designing my new website and it's caused me to deeply ponder my highest ‘values’. I even had an identity crisis or two while writing my about page. 🙃
See - growing up, my mother used to reward me with gummy bears any time I told the truth. It didn't matter if I had just knocked something down and broke it. The deal between me and her was ‘I'm not going to get in trouble for any of my mistakes, but I need to tell the truth at all times’.
This kinda snowballed out of control as I grew older, when I started valuing radical honesty (to the point of compulsively blurting out what I thought about anyone or anything going on, without a filter.) 😬
Fast forward to the week before New Years 2024, and I was chatting with a close friend about what intention I was bringing into the new year. And I said that I was thinking about bringing kindness into the forefront of my consciousness, even above honesty if it came down to it.
Why? Because there were a few moments this past year where I was treated with overwhelming kindness, and WOW ( that's some gooooooooood stuff ). It just felt so good. I mean, addicting good. To the point where I became inspired to want to gift that feeling to other people in my life too.
Digging a little deeper, I started to realize the reason kindness felt so good is because much of the time, my own inner self critic was so darn loud… tbh I just desperately needed some relief.
Last month I finished reading ‘Self Compassion’ by Kristen Neff, and came to understand that… in the name of ‘being honest with myself’ (and my shortcomings), I had lived most of my life prior without much self-kindness underneath.
(so exhausting)
So the first few weeks of 2024 I tried being unconditionally kind. And TBH it felt totally amazing. I was like, wow, I love everyone (including myself). Maybe from now on, I can just live life this way. On kindness autopilot. Easy, right?
But part of me still wondered if there was a catch. I mean, I just kept digging internally… feeling into it… wondering, is being kind objectively better than telling someone what I actually think, in all situations? 🤔
Personally, the thought of people trying to please me, saying or doing one thing while secretly feeling another way, fundamentally gives me the ick. Where's the trust in that? How can I ever truly relax and trust without a foundation of honesty at all times?
Then one of my friends and collaborators finally sent me this quote:
“When we are honest but lack kindness, our communication is cruel. When we are kind but dishonest, our communication is manipulative. There is always, always a way to be both kind AND honest.”
I decided that in order to cultivate the healthiest communication and relationships possible this upcoming year, I really do need both, completely, in balance. (as much as possible) 💛
This is how I'm bringing these insights into my business this year:
Kindness is my word for 2024. I want to be radically kind to people I work with, and I also want to be more kind to myself than ever before. I want to work with nice people and projects that are compassionate to others, and to the animals, and to the planet.
But also, in the spirit of honesty and healthy communication, I'm going to ask for feedback more than ever before this year from my clients. I'm currently developing a new feedback system which will use innovative ways to receive suggestions. This will help me make my services and customer experiences the very best they can possibly be.
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