When Honesty May not Help

Honesty is something we all desire from those around us. In our everyday dealings with family, friends, co-workers or business partners, we all expect the truth. We value honesty. With honesty comes trust and belief in one another. It gives the courage to continue to engage in serious activities with someone because they are trustworthy.

There are instances where people try to play smart and avoid saying some truths because of how it may be perceived. They may choose to skip some parts of a story so that you assume the missing elements by yourself and come to the conclusion they intend but not the actual conclusion.

Wether this is good or bad depends on somethings. For example, the context, the seriousness of the matter and how important the missing pieces that were left out. It is also important to confirm if the person being told the story specifically requested for those missing pieces and how this request was handled when it came up.

When you find yourself in some unnecessary trouble like an overenthusiastic law enforcement officer, an overbearing boss or a nagging family member, telling incomplete stories may be the easy way out to maintain your sanity and the peace of the environment.

This is particularly important because the full truth may not be bad but these set of people are just out for trouble. Why should I feed you with information for you to feign anger and disturb my life?

There are instances where hiding some elements of a story can become a disaster and will ruin things. A very good example is while narrating your story to your lawyer. In such an instance, every detail is important for him to arrive at a way to help you.
It is the lawyer who should now decide which aspects of the story to stay silent on. It is the lawyers expertise to omit and allow others to assume or fill in the blank spaces by themselves. Hence providing the service for which they were hired.

Another important person to not lie to is your doctor. No need to hide sicknesses or symptoms from him or her because all the information given to him or her will come into play and contribute towards taking care of your health.

Personally, I don't have problems with half truths or lies of omission because I use it a lot inorder to avoid some unpleasant situations or conversations.
Also, because I am very much aware of the ways this lie can be told, I specifically ask questions when being told a story and I feel the person is leaving out important details. You know the saying "A thief is always afraid of being stolen from", lol. That's exactly my situation when it comes to lies of omission.

I believe that we should try to be honest and transparent in our dealings but I also acknowledge that there are circumstances where honesty may not entirely be helpful. In such situations, one may have to do the needful by omitting certain aspects inorder to achieve a desired condition.