Words

“It’s only words.” “Actions speak louder than words.” “How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.” We make these statements and many more like them; but there is another reality. Our words are the only true currency of character that we will ever have. Let me say that again, “Our words are the only true currency of character that we will ever have.” If we spend this treasure with empty or false words, we will never be able to recover our reputation and will be poor indeed.

Words may be just words, but they are very important. Words represent a contractual agreement between conversational participants. Sometimes we can rely upon the facts of how this person has acted in the past. Sometimes, words are all we have.

I am challenged to always make my words true and easy to digest. I want people to sense that every one of my words has been carefully chosen for its meaning in the present context. I want people to be able to understand and trust me. Will you join me in a culture changing revolution? The only ones who stand to lose may be the litigation lawyers; but they can find work other than lawsuits against those who tell untruths.

Above All, Do Not Lie

Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality,1 and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.2

1 By bestiality, Dostoevsky refers to "human predatoriness, and godless egoism." Ronald D. Leblanc Times of Trouble: Violence in Russian Literature and Culture, http://bit.ly/1BYSjLF; Elsewhere in The Brothers Karamozov, Dostoevsky says, "People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to a beast; a beast could never be so cruel as a man, so artistically, artfully cruel."
2 (Dostoevsky 2002 edition, 44)

Work Cited:
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamozov. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002 edition.