The Importance of Honesty

The importance of honesty is a value that has always been taught in the family, society and school. Honesty is a value that has many advantages and disadvantages. In occasions it is better to not say things because they will hurt the others. But then it is important to be honest with people. Because this way you will earn people's respect. After looking at many definitions of honesty, the best one or the one that fits this particular context is the following:

Honesty has its advantages and disadvantages. This is normal it is like resembling to fact that if white exists; black must also exist in order to contrast. The good thing about being honest is that people keep it's ideals they show who they are. They do not lie because of the fear of being judged.

The disadvantage of being honest is that it will hurt others, and that it might break up relations. In occasions the truth hurt and people do not want to hear the truth and they get upset with the person that is telling them the truth.

Definition: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2009/12/13/jun05.asp

Honesty is the main reason to trust a person. It is the instrument to talk with the truth and win other's trust. A person that has won it's friend trust is a person that is honest. The society as well as it's family members will have confidence and feel that they can rely on the person.

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When people are honest they begin to acquire fame. If you have good fame, it will be easier to have friends are you will feel n a good environment. Being honest also helps, because if you have nothing to hide, the behavior you will have is a relaxed one. But on the other hand when a person is not honest it is always worrying that the lies he has told are going to be discovered. He will always have to be careful, with each move or comments he makes.

There are many forms of not being honest, one of them is when details are omitted or avoided. This is the most common form of being dishonest. The other form is when you make up lies in order to favor someone or achieve something.

When people are not being honest it is because they fear that if they are honest something bad will happen. For example, women are more honest than man. When a women sees her friend's boyfriend with another girl. She will call her friend and tell her about her boyfriend. Even though she is conscious that she might lose her friend's friendship but she still tells the truth. Unfortunately people interpret this as being a nosy person. This is not true because woman only watch each other's back. Woman also do not want to do to others what they don't want to be done to them. Another example of being honest is when women ask each other, how they look and if that cloth suits them. They are always telling the truth.

On the other hand men do not act this way, they always say what they know will get him something in exchange. They have the courage or can stand being with another person even though; they are married or have a girlfriend. They are not honest and many times live with this and feel no regret what so ever. Thanks to this it always attributed hat men cannot be loyal, that they are unfaithful because of their nature.

A person that is not honest, is a person that is hated because everyone think that he is a hypocrite and that they don't deserve the friendship. Or when they really need the help, no one will be there for them, because it will be very hard to difference when they are honest or dishonest.

The books that are being analyzed are The Pilot's wife and the color of water. They show why it is important to be honest and how this affects people's lives and change their lives. In the pilot's wife Jack was not being honest with his wife, and the consequence of this was that even though he was dead his wife lost the confidence she had in him. She no longer believed the things he told her, or the love he had towards her. He was not honest with himself because he wanted to live a lie. And he did not want to be conscious and accept the things he did were bad, and that he was only making his wife suffer.

Jack did not realize that magnitude of the problem he was getting in to just because he was not honest. After his death many people thought that jack had not been honest with society. Apparently the way in which jack died was considered a suicide and not an accident. His friend and relatives could not believe this, they thought that jack had a nice life and that he did not have any problems that would take him to do such an act. They also felt bad for Kathryn and her daughter, especially now that they knew that jack was not being honest with them. And that he had a double life.

In the pilot's wife there are many lies. Most of the characters were not honest; they were not honest with themselves and were not honest with the society. For example jack was not honest with his wife, Kathryn. He never told her that he had two families. This action talks bad about jack, because he was not honest with her. If jack was really in love with Kathryn he would have been honest. It is better to be honest even though this was going to hurt them. He should have thought in the consequences of his lies.

Jack was not honest in many things and to many people; he was not honest to his daughter. If he had a good relationship with her he could have had the confidence to tell her the truth. But he preferred to live a lie. He also lied about his mother; he made everyone think that she was dead. When she was alive, only after jack's death did they find the truth.

At the end of the book Kathryn, has not learned the lesson, because she is not honest, she goes and visits jack's other wife. But she doesn't reveal the identity she does not trust the other woman, or maybe thinks that now that jack is dead it is not important to clear things up. Kathryn's form f behavior is not correct, because she does not have the right to chose and lie to another person. Well maybe not lie, but the fact that she is not being honest.

Apparently both characters from this book still have not understood completely the importance of honesty in their lives. These characters are not adolescents and thereby know how to difference good from bad. This criteria or ability is developed as time passes.

At home it is very common that parents are always telling their children to be honest and t not tell lies, because sooner or later the truth is reveled and when this happens everyone gets hurt. Because they feel betrayed, or feel they no longer know that person.

The color of water, in this book honesty plays a very important role. This is because honesty is something that was not present in the book. But it played an important role. The story talks about James and how he discovers his heritage, and family's background. James is a black person, but his mother is white, he does not understand why his mother is white and he is black. When he was a child he thought that he was adopted. He grew up thinking that his mom was not honest with him. That she was lying to him about many things.

Because of this action James doesn't trust her. Only after he has started a deep investigation he realizes that his suspects were true but in the way in which he thought. He realized that his mother was not being honest because it was something painful for her to remember. Her past was full of pain and bad things. After James knows the entire story about his mom he tries to justify her acts and then realized that he has done badly in not trusting his mother. All though his mother was not completely honest but she had her reason.

In this case honesty had disadvantages which were that James got hurt when he knew the truth about his father, and that his grandparents will never accept him because he is black, the main reason why his mother ran away from home was because she was in love with a black man and her family especially her parents totally disapproved this.

This book has a lot of secrets and mysteries, all about James childhood and his mother background. The mother keeps her pregnancy as a secret by several years. As a consequence this brings a lot of honesty's problems.

This is the type of thing that will hurt others and she tried to be very discreet about these issues. She did not want things like these to be known. She did not want to be honest with her family because she knew that they would not support. That is what she decided to abort the baby; she knew her situation and thought in the baby. At that time Ruth was too young and knew that she would not be able to care for the baby. She understood her situation by being honest with herself.

. Ruth has no idea why two of her mother's sisters have not spoken for decades; their syndrome is kept secret. Ruth also kept the secret of Tateh's sexual abuse of her. These secrets from the past live in the present, haunting Ruth and complicating her relationship with her family.

“Mameh's sisters were more about money than anything else, and any hurts that popped up along the way, they just swept them under the rug. They were all trying hard to be American, you know, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind.” ¹

Ruth's family was being honest and dishonest at the same time; they were honest because they said the truth about not liking blacks. They were lying to themselves, when they started to hide their back ground and wanted to be completely Americans. In their attempt to wanting to be more American they lost their essence and lied to everyone.

Honesty can harm people because if you are honest, people might take this as something bad. For example if Ruth tells others that her parents or racist, the society will also think she has this behavior and might not want to be with her.

In both books the presence of honesty is very important, especially in the development of the story. The good things that can be taken from these books are that they teach honesty as the best policy.

These books show that honesty has good and bad things at the same time. In the pilot's wife it is completely unacceptable to be honest. The action of not being honest, harmed many people, the consequence of this was not suffered only by the wife but by the society. After this everyone lost hope in Jack he no longer was the respected Pilot, he was at the beginning.

Quote from internet: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006040520860

At the end he was the liar, the one who cheated on his wife, among other things that were discovered as the novel developed.

The topics and themes used in these books are topics which are reflected in our society. Not many people are honest with themselves, they invent things in order to feel good, or they think it is better to live in a world that they have invented or created to their convenience.

A situation in which honesty can be avoided ad it's consequences are not that bad, is in Ruth's situation. When she took the decision to leave her family and change her name, she did not think this would bring her consequences. And it did not matter, it stared to be important when, James grew up and started questioning his mother. When he was a child and could not understand why he had another skin color, when she was the woman that gave birth to him. He did not understand if he came out of his mother, why were they so different.

As a conclusion I can say that be a honest person is very important because you have the opportunity to be a better human being and also people will trust in you. When you are not honest you are involucrate in many problems and you are not happy so I consider that the best way to enjoy the life is always saying the true.