No Legacy Is so Rich as Honesty – 6 Steps to Develop an Honest Mentality 5 Ways to Build Trust and Honesty in Your Relationship Nine Tips to Improve Your Integrity and Honesty

Hairstyle Appreciation Day 20th Century Hairstyles 20 Of The Most Famous Hairstyles Throughout History 25 Hairstyles of the Last 100 Years What are the latest hairstyles? National Honesty Day Anyone else pick up on the irony that honesty day is also on hairstyle day?  :) Honesty is more than telling the truth Oatmeal Cookie Day Delicious oatmeal cookie variations Oatmeal Cookie Drinks for Adults only

(For Sunday July 6) It may seem kind of obvious to be grateful for honesty but I'm not sure I have ever given serious thought to it in this way.  Have you?  I mean, we all appreciate honesty, but have we ever been truly grateful for it? Yesterday I started a teen girls study with my redheads. They, and us parents with them, are in some traditionally rocky years.  I remember all too well my own teen years and the things that I was tempted by and struggled with.  If I can spare my girls any of it I will do whatever it takes! I didn't know how the study would go, I was hoping they would choose to be honest with me and in front of each other. And to my relief, they both were.  And while sometimes honesty is hard to hear because it can be disappointing or angering or concerning I am so grateful for the honesty my girls had with me.  It helps me to parent them better when I have an idea of what might be simmering below the surface.  And as I think abou...

Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.   Elizabeth Cady Stanton Today's quote could cover many different topics of truth but I want to discuss the most basic fact of truth and that is honesty.   When we choose to tell the truth, to be honest, then we are standing on firm ground.  When we choose to engage in dishonesty then we quickly can and will find ourselves in quicksand.  As a parent I've been reminded of this fact about telling the truth with my own children.  Teaching them to always tell the truth has been a needed refresher course for me. Through them I have seen why we are tempted  to  be dishonest and what happens when we choose that course of action.  I  have observed that we are most often tempted  to  be dishonest when we are scared of the consequences of whatever it is that needs to be disclosed.  This clearly shows how faulty our thinking is because the consequences of being dishonest and covering up far ...

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not.   Attributed to Hanoch McCarty I think a very clear picture of today's quote is seen in the TV show "Intervention".  That show makes me sad.  It gives a very clear picture of a person who is so beaten down by life circumstances and choices that they turn to drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc to "cure" what ails them.  Except it ends up being more "ail" than "cure".  And as the producers interview these sad people it almost always comes out that they are trying to numb the disappointment of who they aren't but want to be.  Somehow, along the way, they got sidetracked from their true self and became this person even they cannot recognize.  They try to convince themselves and others that they like this person they are.  But they lie.  They lie to themselves.  Their disappointment in who they want to be but think they can never be hangs heavy on them like a ...

There's nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth.   Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I may be totally off on today's quote but oh well!   It's my blog so I can interpret as I want!  Ha!   We all are aging.  No matter what we might try to maintain our youth we fail.  We are all aging.  No amount of botox, surgery, fast cars, etc will help us with the quest to stay youthful.  So why not focus instead on the things that matter and do keep their youth?  I'm going to bypass the tree part of Holmes quote today and go straight for the other, more important in my opinion, part.  Truth.  When we choose honesty we choose youth because the truth never ages.  It maintains its youthful glow.  The picture I get in my mind is that of wrinkled skin versus smooth.  When we choose lies and falsehood we create wrinkles.  And what do we do with wrinkles?  We try to smooth them back out with cremes and ...

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.   Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov The worst kind of liar, perhaps the most pitiful kind of liar, is the one who lies to themselves.  Self-deception is painful.  It's painful for the people who are in the world of the liar and it eventually becomes painful for the liar themselves.  At first the liar is in a bliss of sorts, having convinced themselves of their lie.  But it always catches up to us in some way.  And usually the way is painful.  When we lie so much, so often, so  passionately  the lie becomes truth to us but nobody else.  Everyone in our life can see the lie for what it is.  This is when it becomes painful to be in relationship with a liar.  Th...

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.   Mark Twain The thing about telling a lie is you have to remember what you've said so that you can keep up the lie and not get caught in it!  So Twain gives a piece of very practical advice, a memory tip.  Tell the truth.  Simple as that.  Tell the truth and you don't have to remember what you said.  Would you rather get caught in a lie or caught in the truth?  :)

People are often unreasonable, illogical, And self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you Of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some False friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank; People may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God It was never between you and them anyway. Mother Teresa

If you don't want anyone to find out, don't do it.   Chinese Proverb If you have to second guess something you are about to do then you probably don't want to do it.  Anything we want to hide will always, eventually, get exposed and when that time comes the fallout will be a lot more messy.   So don't  "just do it".