You can be honest only when you are interacting with another person. And thankfully, many of us are honest in our words and deeds. But there is also another interesting aspect called “Emotional Honesty”.
It is a measure of how honest we are to ourselves, how much we acknowledge our own thoughts and feelings, and how open we are to acknowledging our shortcomings. I find that it is sometimes more difficult to be honest with ourselves than with others. We have a “perceived self”, what we think we are, how we are complacent in believing things about ourselves. Sometimes we live in our past glory – there may have been a time when we are very sincere, honest and committed, but we have slipped over a period of time. In such a case it is important that we accept the change, acknowledge that we are no longer the same, and not try to pass the buck by blaming circumstances or other people’s behavior. That requires deep introspection on regular basis, and tremendous courage to face our negative aspects.
If we systematically build our emotional honesty, both our quality of life and also our relationships improve tremendously.
11th Jan 2021
I launched a spontaneous e-survey to gauge the emotional parameters of people of all ages and backgrounds at the beginning of the year. It was overwhelming that nearly 500 people responded immediately. Surprising, and reassuring, was that majority of the respondents said that (1) their bonding with family has improved, (2) their mental health is better after the pandemic, (3) they are confident that normalcy will return this year, and (4) that schools should reopen. This is a very heart-warming indicator that human beings are resilient, optimistic and willing to rise above the worst of challenges. I do hope that people have given a deep thought when responding, have been able to understand their mental and emotional state objectively, and have responded truthfully.
If these findings are right, we can indeed look forward to a promising 2021 with this positive spirit. So, I can wish heartily that we can genuinely look forward for a promising year ahead and rebuilding on whatever hurdles we faced in 2020 and the lessons we learnt from it.
We have put up the detailed survey results, gender and age-wise on Banjara’s website if you wish to understand the responses in-depth and form your own conclusions.
