Scenario 1:Darling, I have to tell you that I never really loved you. Your mother is the one who insisted in vain and I could not resist her. I am sorry, but today this marriage is unbearable to me.The truthScenario 2:Mom, the results of your medical tests have come back and I was with the doctor this morning. He tells me that you have only two months left to live in the best of cases. I am sorry, Mom.The truthScenario 3:Darling, I have long kept it to myself but it is time I told you the truth: for 7 years I have been in an extramarital relationship, but I still love you.The truthScenario 4:Darling, ever since the surgery you had in 2016, you have become infertile. It was to protect you and to let you believe that everything was fine that I had children outside. The children know, but they love you no less.The truth
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There, laid out, are sentences that are as hard to utter as they are to hear. If we lived in an ideal world where all human beings were transparent, faithful and free of care, these scenarios would be common currency. However, for one reason or another, it happens that we fail to tell the truth, or the whole truth, to those close to us. Some do it so as not to hurt the other person, others because they do not have the right words, and still others because they are afraid of breaking the trust placed in them. Hence the interest of the question: is every truth fit to be told?
Right off, we would say that not every truth is fit to be told, for lying and concealment have their virtues too. Nor is it wrong to say that certain truths bring us more trouble than anything else. When we choose to tell the truth, why are we afraid? Why do we break relationships? Why do we lose loved ones? Why do people prefer (to be with) people who lie to them?
The reality is that Man has a continual need for reassurance, for solace, for comfort and for inner peace. Our reactions and our thoughts cannot always and unequivocally line up with our values and our commitments. It is along these lines that we come to make missteps that could offend our neighbour. When that happens, are we bound to cause those close to us pain by telling them?
Considering scenario 3, what is the use of informing your partner of this unless you want to break off the union or do the other person harm?
As for scenario 2, is it not wiser to conceal the news, since informing the dying woman would amount to hastening her death? And what if, faced with such a statement, the mother decided to cut her stay on Earth from two months down to two days? Everyone would suffer for it. Without a doubt!
The reasons why not every truth is fit to be told are many. However, if you opt for the truth everywhere and always, you must keep five criteria in mind: the usefulness, the timeliness, the completeness, the words and the fallout.
- The truth I would like to reveal — is it useful to the person I am speaking to, or to my audience? If the information is going to help them move forward in life, then yes, that truth is fit to be told. In scenario 1, if this frankness is bound to bring about the breakdown of the marriage and therefore to set both partners free, then this criterion is met and the truth is beneficial.
- Is the truth that weighs on me timely? In other words, does it come at the right moment and under the right conditions? We would have to make sure the other person is in the best physical and mental condition to accept the information we are about to pass on.
- Am I ready to tell the truth and the whole truth? Indeed, there is no point in revealing a partial truth that leaves the other person thirsting for more and, by the same token, exposes us to another thunderbolt when the other piece of truth is uncovered. Referring to scenario 3, imagine if the wife were to learn later that, on top of all that, children were born of that union. A catastrophe!
- Do I have the right words to express the truth clearly, without ambiguity and without rambling? A hidden truth is one thing. But a truth badly expressed, and therefore leaving room for interpretation and confusion, is quite another.
- And, when all is said and done, am I ready to bear the consequences of the truth I am going to reveal? This is the part of the film that unsettles us, for however much we try to anticipate, we are dealing with the human being in all his complexity, his particularity, his unpredictability and his inconstancy. In scenario 4, the woman has unburdened herself, but the man may choose to divorce, to accept this family that is a stranger to him, to take his own life or even to kill those children, and so on. He could suffer a heart attack on learning this news. His mental health would be harmed for ever. The consequences are many. In every case, the woman will have to bear them. Afterwards, she will not hesitate to wonder, as we do, whether every truth is fit to be told.
To close, let us take this as said: bringing your life closer to the truth makes expressing the truth easier. The aim should be to lean more and more toward that ideal while facing up, along the way, to every consequence of our words.
M. Z.
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