There are numerous positive benefits that acrue from telling the truth. These benefits include (but are not limited to):

• Greater success/personal expertise
• An increased sense of grounding/confidence
• Less anxiety/worry/guilt
• Increased ability to deal with crises/breakdowns
• Improved problem solving abilities
• Improved interpersonal relationships
• Greater emotional health/control of one's emotions
• Increased ability to influence others
• Better sleep
• Better health
• Increased ability to think well/reason soundly
• Less need to control
• Good humor
• Greater self-expression and self-satisfaction

Consequences of Not Telling the Truth

There are also consequences that result from not telling the truth. Some of these consequences include (but are not limited to):

• More frequent failures/frustrations in life
• Being distrusted by others
• Lack of self-esteem/self-confidence
• Dysfunctional interpersonal relationships
• Iinability to self-correct
• Stress of many kinds (virtually all types of human stress can be traced to not telling the truth at one level or another).

Barriers to Telling the Truth

Since we are going to spend the year focusing on the positive benefits of telling the truth, we should admit at the outset that there are formidable barriers to genuinely telling the truth in our society. These barriers will tend to work against our efforts. For this reason, I will attempt to highlight some of the main ones we are likely to encounter:

#1 REFUSING TO ACCEPT THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO TELL THE TRUTH

I have already commented on this widespread but false belief. Obviously, if you do not believe it is humanly possible to tell the truth, you're not going to spend much time or energy pursuing this goal. Instead, you will fall back on this excuse to absolve yourself of the need to question your deepest held beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and strategies. If you fall into this category, reading this newsletter during the upcoming year will likely irritate you.

#2 FEAR OF CONSEQUENCES OF ADMITTING THE TRUTH

Sometimes, we avoid telling the truth because we are afraid of the possible consequences. For example, we might avoid telling our boss the truth because we fear we might be fired. Or we might avoid telling our mate what we truly think or feel, because we fear they will lose respect for us. Or, we might be reluctant to consider the validity of a new idea or proposition, because it is so contrary to what most people believe that it might lead us to be socially ostracized. Columbus's decision to openly acknowledge that the earth might be round and not flat is an excellent example of the very real consequences truth seekers often experience. When someone adopts a new truth that threatens certain established beliefs, those people who feel threatened by the new idea are very likely to close ranks and retaliate viciously. Just consider the establishment's responses to Socrates, Copernicus, and Galileo.

On a personal level, there are important psychological consequences to opening yourself up to deeper truths. If we go through life piling up false beliefs upon false beliefs, as most of us do unknowingly, we begin to build a structure of beliefs that become linked to one another. This structure is like a giant house of cards, where if one belief is ever acknowledged to be false, the whole house may come crumbling down.

This is a very real fear for many people, and it often makes us phobic about getting too close to the truth. It can be very painful and difficult to suddenly admit that many of the things you've believed in wholeheartedly throughout your life might actually be false. Indeed, our personal identity is often linked to such core beliefs. So to challenge them or to hear any information to the contrary can actually seem like a death threat to our established identity (which it actually is).