Be honest with yourself

"Honesty" is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

         — Billy Joel, "Honesty"

We expect honesty from of our partners and other people. How many times do we tell our partners, “Just be honest with me” with the condition that “I won’t get mad at you”? How many times have we heard the saying, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive”?

These are our expectations of other people. Why don’t we expect the same of/from ourselves? And I am not talking about us being honest with others. I am talking about us being honest with ourselves.

Look in the mirror. Be honest with yourself. Do you like what you see?

I won't get mad at you, just be honest.

Look deep inside of yourself. Self-analyze yourself. Most importantly, be honest with yourself. Do you like the person you are on the inside? On the outside? Are you living according to your values? Do you look like you want to look? Are you the person you want to be? Are you happy?

It is all a part of self-evaluation. I think people are afraid to self-evaluate themselves for fear of what they will find. Am I really that needy? Am I really that co-dependent? Am I really that obnoxious? Do I really sound like that? Am I really that selfish? Am I really that… out of shape?

The next step is to stop making excuses. Take accountability. Stop blaming other people or society. It is okay to blame those things for the root cause of your problems, but the solutions - and how you move forward - lie inside of you, and only you. You have the power. Don't let anybody else have that power over you.

If you are honest with yourself and you find that you are too self-centered and greedy, make an effort to volunteer for something or give to a charity. Bring yourself more to the middle of the spectrum. You don't have to go overboard and donate all your possessions to the Salvation Army.

Just the other day, I circled back to give a couple of dollars to a homeless person at a street corner. Something about when I made eye contact with this guy made me feel his pain and sorrow. The light turned green before I could reach into my pocket to get some money. As I drove down the street, I was filled with regret. I kept seeing the guy's face in my mind.  I did an illegal U-turn as my girlfriend asked what the heck I was doing. I just told her there was something I had to do.

If you find you are out of shape, make the effort to get on that treadmill or just go for a walk. Stop pitying yourself. Put those chips, ice cream, or cookies away. Better yet, don't even buy them when you go to the market so you won't be tempted at home.

Again, you have the power. Don't let those chips or that pizza control you. I know it requires motivation and discipline, but those are traits you need to succeed in life. I'll be honest with myself, I fail more times than I care to admit to these things. So why not start working on that motivation and discipline with getting in physical shape. You will feel better about yourself and other people will feel your confidence. But you need to be honest with yourself. Don't lie to yourself and say you don't have time to exercise or you don't have time to eat that healthy meal. Make the time.

If you find you are depressed because of something that happened in your past, you can’t do anything to change that, but you have the power to change the future. You can blame your parents - or society - for where you are now, but you can’t blame them for where you are going. You have control of that. You are older now. You are wiser now. You have life experiences under your belt. You are in control now. Not them.

Before you learned how to drive, you needed to ride as a passenger in a car driven by someone else. But once you learned how to drive, you could control where you are going. It mattered not if you were involved in a car accident in a vehicle driven by someone else when you were younger. You are now in control. There is no one else steering the wheel, or pressing the foot pedals. You dictate where you are going and how fast, or slow, you want to go - or if you just want to stop and take a break.

So take a good hard look in the mirror. Don’t blame society or your past for the person you will become. You are stronger than that. You are more powerful than that. Stop making excuses. Hit the reset button on life and start from now. Every book has chapters. Flip the page and start a new chapter. Be the person you want to be. Create the story you want to create. Don't let anyone, or anything, else write your story.

It all starts with being honest with yourself.