What's the point of telling the Truth in a world full of lies?

[00:00:00]If telling the truth can cost your relationships, belonging, your reputation, job, or sometimes even your safety, then what exactly is the point?

[00:00:09]Wouldn't life be so much easier if all of us just learn how to stay quiet? To smile when everyone else is smiling and just go along with it, to let people keep living whatever allows the relationships, family, or the entire system to keep functioning without disruption.

[00:00:29]Because dishonesty rarely starts with a calculated attempt to deceive someone.

[00:00:35]Most of the time it may look almost innocent, like people pleasing, pretending not to notice something, laughing at something that actually disturbed you, nodding through the conversation that you disagree with, or simply withholding what you truly think because you know that truth will change the atmosphere in the room. And there are times when silence is genuinely the wisest choice. Which is why the older I get, the less I think the question is about honesty. It's more about responsibility. Because once you've really noticed something now, you have to decide what to actually do with it.

[00:01:16]I've come to think that carrying truth is like carrying a surgical scalpel. in the right hands used for the right purpose, it can actually help remove what is causing harm and make healing possible. But it's still very sharp. And when we're operating from a wounded place, then telling the truth can very easily become the weapon without us really admitting that this is what we're actually doing.

[00:01:39]Because you can say something that is factually accurate and still use it to humiliate another person. Or you can expose another person's weakness because you may want to make them feel as small as they want to make you feel. Sometimes what we call speaking our truth is just the desire to force an apology, prove the point, show that we were right, or finally make that the person understand what they did to us. You can become so focused on the accuracy of what you're trying to say that you stop thinking about what is actually moving you to say those things right now. Is it love or responsibility? Or is it some injured part of you that still hopes that the truth will finally give you power over a situation where you once felt powerless?

[00:02:30]And that distinction is very important because true compassion does not heal.

[00:02:37]on the contrary can expose a person who doesn't have capacity to process things yet and leave them feeling ashamed, defensive, and not really helping to create understanding but making things worse. It's almost like pointing a surgical instrument at someone who never consented to surgery. I'm not saying we should protect people from every uncomfortable reality to preserve their feelings because there are moments when people's choices directly affect you.

[00:03:05]And remaining silent would require you to abandon yourself. If a relationship requires you to keep swallowing your discomfort, denying what is happening or agreeing to something that you know is wrong for you, then speaking up is part of protecting your integrity. But this is very different from moving through life announcing everything you believe you can see in other people.

[00:03:30]Just because we see something in others does not automatically make it ours to expose. I learned this partly through situations that forced me to realize that directness is not always the most appropriate response because things can get very unpredictable and even dangerous when another person is disregulated.

[00:03:51]Years ago, I found myself in a situation that taught me that lesson. I got invited to dinner by someone I met through an acquaintance. We'd seen each other socially before and we were meeting in a public place. So, I had no reason to feel unsafe.

[00:04:07]And during dinner, as we were ordering, he mentioned that he had not taken his mental health medication because he didn't want to mix it with alcohol. I wasn't drinking.

[00:04:18]And as the evening continued, he kept ordering drinks and I began noticing his mood change. He grew more agitated and the conversation started to drip into a much darker and more disturbing territory. I don't think I would be able to say those things out loud, but even if I tried, YouTube will probably ban me for life. Like, it was bad.

[00:04:42]So, I tried to politely redirect the conversation a few times while in the background figuring out how to leave.

[00:04:51]But at some point, after my several softer attempts to change the subject were completely ignored, I leaned in, looked him in the eye, and calmly but firmly told him to stop. I said I was not interested in hearing that anymore and that what he was describing disgusted me. There was a brief pause and then something in him just snapped.

[00:05:18]He jumped up and started grabbing and throwing things from the table, including knives, yelling and threatening me. The whole thing just felt so real. I remember immediately getting up and leaving the restaurant with my heart pounding because I thought that he might actually follow me. I shared this because in theory setting up a direct boundary in this kind of situation was exactly the kind of response that most therapists would encourage. I was telling the truth about my discomfort. I was protecting myself and I had every right to say what I said. But being right does not necessarily make a situation safe. There is this kind of empowerment that tells people especially women that we should be direct and confront disrespect right away and name exactly what is happening.

[00:06:05]And most of the time that is absolutely the case. But there are situations when telling the truth is not neutral because you are alone with someone that you don't know very well and that person may be unstable, intoxicated, disregulated and already showing you that they do not respect boundaries. The wisest response will not always be the most satisfying one. Sometimes it may be saying something neutral, ending the interaction, getting to a public place, calling someone you trust, or simply living without making sure the other person fully understands why. Because you do not owe a disregulated person a perfectly articulated lesson while your safety is in question. And I think this is where ego can become extremely dangerous because once we're activated, we often feel that almost unbearable need to overexlain, to make the point and make the other person see and acknowledge what they did. But your truth does not become less true simply because you choose not to deliver it to someone who is not capable of receiving it safely.

[00:07:13]There is another version of this that frequently appears in close relationships.

[00:07:18]You may watch someone you love repeat the same pattern for years and you can almost see where it's going every single time. You can recognize the kind of person they keep choosing, the fear beneath all of their decisions and the wound that keeps organizing their entire life. And naturally, you may want to help because you don't want them to keep suffering. So you keep replaying conversations in your mind looking for better words and better timing or some clear explanations that might actually help them avoid another round of the same pain. But I had to learn that sometimes insight cannot be transferred from one person to another. Maybe every soul really does have a curriculum or certain lessons that can be supported by other people but cannot be learned secondhand.

[00:08:10]There are truths that we might not be able to receive until life brings us to the point when we're are finally able to see them and decide to actually do something about it. And perhaps some of the psychological patterns we judge as denial or ignorance once developed to help the mind to protect the person from more pain that they were able to hold at that time. And eventually that protection may become limiting. Yes. But tearing it down before the person is ready does not necessarily liberate them. It actually exposes them. So we can offer our perspective and remain available or answer honestly when the other person genuinely asks us to help them see.

[00:08:54]But forcing awareness onto someone who is not ready or who has not asked you can become a way of trying to micromanaging their path. even if our intention feels loving. Sometimes we're really trying to save someone. But there can also be a part of us that may actually enjoy being the one who sees, the one who knows, and the one that can explain another person their entire life. I have a feeling that many of us have found ourselves in that place at least once or maybe twice. And if you ever catch yourself there, I think it really helps to answer these questions honestly.

[00:09:33]Who says this person is living incorrectly? Is that according to God, according to reality? Or is that according to your idea of who this person should become? And if the answer is yes to that last question, then who do you think gave you the authority and power to decide how this person is supposed to leave their life? Because there is free will after all. And if we're not respecting that, then what we're really trying to do is to control the other person. And control is not love. It's just ego disguised as love.

[00:10:09]You see, growth cannot be forced from the outside and then called transformation in the name of love. It just doesn't work like that. So sometimes the wisest and most loving thing we can do is to remain available without making ourselves another person's awakening and instead just focus on our own life. But there is an important distinction here. Not every truth belongs to the same category. Some truths only belong to another person's own journey and those ask us to practice humility, patience, respect their freedom and accept the fact that growth and awakening cannot be forced. But there are also truths that stop belonging only to one person's inner life because they start affecting the reality many other people have to live in. And when that happens, I think the question of whether to tell the truth or not changes and eventually becomes something much bigger than just personal relationships. Think about it. If that were the whole story, then none of us would know the world as we see it today.

[00:11:21]If silence and minding our own business was always wisdom, then none of us would know all of these names of people who changed history and contributed to humanity's evolution by refusing to stay quiet. You see, there are moments when common sense and peace are just avoidance and fear disguised as wisdom.

[00:11:42]And if you look at history, prophets, scientists, reformers, civil right leaders, physicians, they all came from different worlds. And yet, strangely enough, their lives followed a very similar pattern. They noticed something that other people learned to ignore, benefit from, or accept. But they kept telling the truth, not worrying about discomfort or loss of reputation, at least in the beginning, believing that that would eventually lead to constructive dialogue and positive change, only to be mocked, isolated, censored, persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, or even worse.

[00:12:25]And then years or even centuries later, the future generations inherited what they had been willing to suffer for.

[00:12:33]Today, we read their words in books. We teach their discoveries. And we build entire institutions around principles that once made them dangerous to the institutions of their own time. Jesus describes this recurring pattern in Matthew 23:34 when he says, "And therefore I'm sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will unal alive and crucify and others you will fogg in your synagogues and pursue from town to town."

[00:13:06]I find this passage deeply unsettling because it shows that many of the people who were telling the truth were rejected not because of lying but because they were interrupting the illusion that so many people learned to depend on and that's how many of the collective illusions that we inherit begin. A lie usually starts small really. For example, workplace choosing to protect the reputation of someone powerful or a religious community confusing loyalty with silence or a child that thinks that protecting the family's image matters more than naming what is actually happening. And then that child grows up and becomes an adult who carries the same agreements into workplaces, communities, institutions until silence stops feeling like a choice and begins feeling like price of belonging.

[00:14:04]I think many of us have been in rooms like that where everyone sensed something but nobody was willing to say it out loud. And as a result, what one person was afraid to confront at that time becomes a reality that others are now expected to participate in. That is how a lie stops being personal and begins becoming structural.

[00:14:28]Now it becomes entangled with someone's income, authority, family role or even their understanding of God. And when someone new brings truths in that structure, they are not just presenting you information.

[00:14:42]There is threat in the whole psychological world that was built around avoiding that truth. This is why humanity can look back with reverence at people that it would likely have punished today. We admire courage once danger has passed and we quote truth after someone has already paid the cost of saying it. And I sometimes wonder what would have happened if all of those people had decided that keeping the peace mattered more.

[00:15:10]What would have happened to Christianity if all of the prophets and apostles had decided to protect themselves through silence? What would science look like today if every observer decided to abandon what the evidence was showing the moment it started contradicting the accepted authority?

[00:15:29]And what would civil rights look like if all the people waited until speaking became socially safe? The world we take for granted today was literally shaped by people who once decided that some truths were worth taking the risk of saying them out loud. But what about tomorrow? What happens to the future of humanity if enough people decide today not to say what they know? What happens if silence keeps accumulating and its consequences keep spreading? Well, I can answer that. I think we're already living it. We look at the corrupt systems and keep wondering how so many people allowed that to continue. As if systems arrive fully formed instead of being formed from thousands of ordinary moments when people decided that saying nothing was easier and safer.

[00:16:20]Because ultimately every system is made up of people like you and me. Systems take shape based on repeated human choices. All those fears that we refuse to examine and all those things we learn to normalize and truth that we choose to pass to someone else to carry. I don't think humanity's greatest suffering was created by people who had learned how to face themselves honestly. It emerged when fear could no longer tolerate being questioned. It happened when pride could no longer admit that it was wrong and when the need for control became more important than another human life.

[00:17:01]And these things begin in other people long before they become collective events or phenomena like oppression, armed conflicts, mass atrocities or institutions organized around power, greed, and fear.

[00:17:15]That's why I've come to believe that truth and healing never really stop with us.

[00:17:22]Because what remains unexamined in one person can enter a family and what remains unexamined and unhealed in enough families can shape a community.

[00:17:32]And once fear, shame, and the need for control become collective, they can shape an entire society. We sometimes speak about ego as though it were just a small psychological inconvenience. Just something that makes us feel defensive in an argument or concerned with being right. Like not a big deal. But we can see the scale it can reach when it's never questioned.

[00:17:56]It's not just confined to what happened in the past. We still see it today in a number of different forms like cyber bullying, public shaming, cancel culture, and many other countless forms that show how fear and the need for control continue shaping the human behavior.

[00:18:16]You see, the distance between an individual refusing to face reality and an institution doing the same may be much smaller than we like to think.

[00:18:27]So, if silence has the power to shape both history and the world we're living in today, then we're back to the same question we started with.

[00:18:39]What's the point of telling the truth in the world full of lies? I don't think the answer is that truth always wins. At least not immediately and not in the way we would like it to. The person who lies may keep their relationship or position while the person who exposes what is happening can become the problem that everyone wants removed. A truth teller can lose their job, reputation, community, the life that they've built and never live long enough to see anyone acknowledge what they were trying to say. Because telling the truth never comes with any type of reward. But I still think it's important to tell the truth when a lie makes other people carry its consequences. Eventually, every lie postpones reality and someone has to leave inside whatever what was hidden. It may be a person who remains in a relationship because they were never given the information that would have allowed them to choose differently.

[00:19:37]Or it may be a child who absorbs everything that the family refuses to name. Or it can also be an employee with less power who continues suffering so that the company can protect its credibility.

[00:19:51]Sometimes entire generations inherit what the previous generations could not bear to confront. And that may be the deepest reason truth can become an act of love and a true gift to someone.

[00:20:04][music] Because when it's offered responsibly, it honors another person's humanity enough to give them access to clarity that is required to make a conscious choice to grow and to change maybe not only their own life but the lives of other people that they will meet in the future because we are connected in ways that are not always immediately visible.

[00:20:24]You can speak harshly to a cashier at a store because you've had a bad day and then 5 minutes later you forget it ever happened. But perhaps they carry that hurt home and become a little shorter with their partner and their partner becomes angry and therefore less patient with their child. And then that child the next morning goes to school carrying the frustration and resentment they don't understand and takes it out on another child and maybe that child is yours. Or maybe someone discovers an affair or fraud and chooses to remain silent because speaking up would make life uncomfortable. And then years later when truth finally comes out, everyone wonders how so many people got hurt. But almost every tragedy has a moment when someone knew something and hope that the problem would solve itself without them.

[00:21:11]We probably will never be able to connect these dots, honestly. But it does not mean that these dots were never connected. I have personal stories that still give me goosebumps because they remind me just how truly small this world is. And that the idea of separation that we've been taught is just another lie. You may hope to move through life like a stone skipping across water as though you could move through this world without leaving any trace. But even the skipping stone leaves ripples behind. And I think this is where protection offered by silence starts revealing itself as another illusion. Because yes, you can remain silent to protect your comfort, reputation or simply the life that you have built.

[00:21:56]And perhaps that choice does allow you to avoid becoming the one who disrupted anything. But the consequences do not go away just because they did not reach you first. They move outward. And your children may have to live in what your generation refused to confront. Or the kids you'll never meet may inherit the world shaped by compromises that once seemed private, reasonable, or too costly to challenge. So silence does not really protect us from consequence.

[00:22:28]It only allows us to avoid witnessing the consequence while passing it to people who had no part in creating it.

[00:22:37]Which means there might not actually be such a thing as simply minding your own business because what we choose to confront or avoid does not end with us.

[00:22:44]And maybe that's why the question has never been just whether telling the truth is worth it. Maybe it's this.

[00:22:53]What kind of world will my silence or my truth help create?