Your word of honor, is it really?
It became an ethical question that I had to answer. My lover just came out of the dorm. I was 18 and my first lover was coming out of the dorm. He didn’t see me but I saw him. And I remembered how over the weekend he handed me a shirt and said “you left this.” I threw it back in his face and said “I didn’t! “ I then walked down the highway and hitched a ride back to campus in a state of shock. You see the shirt wasn’t mine, it belonged to another woman. It wouldn’t be the last time in my life that I had to deal with a liar but it would be the first time I knew what it was like to deal with a cheater.
Very often we live on assumptions without knowing it. I assumed I love you meant that I am with you and only you. And in retrospect I never asked if that was the agreement between the two of us. It never accord to me to ask how exclusive is this going to be. I thought my idea of love and togetherness was a universally understood way of being and didn’t need to be said. That was a mistake I learned years later when I began to learn meditation and really looked at many of my unexamined assumptions on how I thought I should behave and how I thought others should.
The first tenant I learned in meditation was to be truthful at all times. This is not simple. It means that sometimes you make yourself look bad and you say it anyway. It means that you take ultimate responsibility for what you do. I know that some people say nasty hurtful things and hide behind the words “I’m just being honest” This is different it is much worse than that!
It is admitting that you have a shadow self and you are out to do some damage. It’s when you say to someone “I will do this but know that I will also do this if the opportunity presents itself. “ It means if you want to say nasty things you don’t hide you admit your angry and trying to cause pain. If your imagining that that thought can give you a sleepless night it does. And having heard it in your own head it often changes what you will and will not do. Ever wonder If you tell the world who you actually are how will that change you?. Knowing that your word is actually your word of honor echoes in what you do and the way you do it. When you speak from this place on a daily basis it changes who you are. When you stand by what you say and mean it you become honorable because you look first to see if your choice is one of honor. If you have to own up to who you are you start examining yourself a little closer.
So what was my ethical dilemma back in my college daze? I already told you he didn’t see me standing there. I mean he really couldn’t see me. Bob was blind. So here was my first choice walk by him quietly and not speak to him. I really wanted this! I really wanted to avoid him utterly. And I could since he was blind he would never know only I would know. I could use the fact that he couldn’t see and just walk on by. That would be such a relief.
But here’s the thing I had promised myself that I would never treat him differently because of his handicap. And here I was planning to slink past him and use the fact he couldn’t see me so I didn’t have to confront him. He had hurt me deeply and I was afraid of him. I was afraid the relationship was over and I didn’t want to take that in just yet. The other problem was I had no idea what to say to him. So the easy way out was very appealing.
So I said “I’m walking past you and I am not speaking to you. And I think what you did is #%@#! “(Censored) okay so I was only 18. What I got from that was self-respect something that I was sorely missing at the time after what he had done and the fact that I didn’t see it coming.