There are certain things we don’t tell everyone: the true number of our lovers; the very worst thing we’ve ever done; for some, their age or weight; and whether or not there’s a gun in the house. These are just examples and there are so very many more little parts of us that for one reason or another is kept inside.
For even the most honest among us, there are secrets. For those less honest, the secret is more safe because it’s often hidden even from the one who holds it, by nature’s own compassion or by desire.
“And this above all: To thine own self be true” is a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet that I’ve tried to follow all my life, and yet it is a dictum that offers the most argument within myself. It’s not as simple as being honest for it involves conflict sometimes between intellect and emotion, feelings of others over our own, morality and what is best for the whole versus the individual, the now versus the future. We have just as much to debate within ourselves as that with others and can only seek assistance from the great philosophers and leaders and by reading what they had to say.
Because I think it can safely be assumed that anything that may confront and force us to look inside ourselves more closely, has already been tangled with before.
After all, aren’t there truly only variations of 37 plots in life?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I am challenged every day to be honest with myself. Some days I just choose to ignore those challenges…Your words are so true Susan. The “tangling” has been going on for years with certain aspects of what is inside each of us. I absolutely agree.
Life ain’t easy, is it?