Stating the Truth When It Could Hurt

I often talk about truth and telling the truth all time time.

Many people agree with me that it’s a good thing to tell the truth.

But then comes parts where they start compromising telling the truth.

For example, they say I don’t want to hurt them so I won’t tell the truth there.

Or that “hinting” is same as telling the truth.

But truth isn’t something that you hide. Truth is actually not even something that you “say”.

It’s better to use a different vocabulary. State the truth.

We know that we don’t tell the facts. We state the facts.

Similarly, we state the truth. Meaning the truth passes through as it is.

For example, someone asks how we are doing?

Instead of saying I am doing really good. We say, I am better. If they drill down, I share what is really going on.

If someone asks why wasn’t this software delivery on time, I say, I haven’t been doing so well lately. Or that I haven’t been focused lately.

This is combined with honest action, to finish the work on time.

A recent situation

There is another situation I encountered. And it’s likely where many people are likely to lie.

I was in an Uber a few days ago. And the driver asked if he could take us offline. Offline means without the app. The driver would cancel the booking. And take us to the same destination without Uber. And I would have to pay him the same money. This way, the driver would not have his pay cut to Uber.

At the time, I did think Uber is a big company. But is it right to cheat against the big company. I thought let’s lie to Uber. I agreed to go offline. He canceled the booking and I snuck a deal to get 50 Rs. off the ride.

Pretty sweet. Now, the person who had booked the ride started getting calls from Uber. In the Uber app it showed that their is a cancelling fee of 38.10 Rs.

I thought Hmm. So, even after snugging a deal with the driver.

I got 11.90 Rs off if I add up the cancelling fee. That’s pretty bad.

The person who booked kept getting multiple calls from Uber to pay up.

Hmm. Uber help allowed selecting “My driver asked me to book without Uber”. I thought for a minute, what I should do. The person who had booked the Uber said that the Driver might lose his Job. I thought for a minute. And then decided I should side with the truth. I explained to the person that we should go with the truth and click the “My driver asked me to book without Uber” option. We did get out money back. 38Rs isn’t a big number. It’s about half a dollar.

Here why I choose “My driver asked me to book without Uber”.

The driver who did asked us for going offline, might also be convincing the same to other riders. And they maybe getting cancelling fees too.

Uber is a business built by hard working people. If they are providing a platform to earn, they should get the reward. The driver wouldn’t even have a job if Uber didn’t provide for it.

So, it didn’t make long term sense for the driver to try to betray his parent company.

If I side with the truth, the possibility that the driver no longer repeats the mistakes is created. It maybe possible that the driver chooses to still repeat the same mistakes. But at a minimum, he has an opportunity to choose a truthful path. And everything he does is truthful.

I also thought about how do court judges and people in administration do justice. Even though they know what is truth, they still may have humanly feeling to the person that may not have things in their favor. What should a judge do.

“We side with the truth”

Always. In every situation. No matter how big or small.

If I had told the truth with the intent of doing good. I would have explained the driver that the consequence of his actions. I should have denied his proposal. And that way, I would have given him a perspective that would have led him to a truthful path.

Since, customer is the king. Uber didn’t charge me anything. But it’s still weird to think that I was involved too.

For Uber the company, it costed 750 Rs. The money adds up to what they pay their employees. And everyone’s home runs.

• To me it costed 700Rs. That’s fine.
• To the person who booked the uber. It costed multiple phone calls.
• To the driver may costed his and his family’s earning.

Truth with truthful action passes through without hurting us.

If the driver had been truthful, he wouldn’t have had to face this situation. And neither would we.

If I had been truthful, both we and the driver wouldn’t have faced the situation.

Because truth passes through without hurting us.

Truth passes through can be imagined and us just standing and truth passing across us. If we are lying, we engage against truth, and it hurts us. If we don’t engage against the truth and let is pass, it doesn’t hurt us.