Disillusionment & Dishonesty

disillusionment: to lose naive faith and trust

This is a terrbile feeling.  It is very similar to disappointment, which is defined as "failing to meet the expectation or hope of".  But disillusionment seems to leave a deeper feeling of emptiness and loss than disappointment.  While it usually doesn't feel good, becoming disillusioned generally leads to  being able to see truth - literally, losing the illusion. 

One of the biggest disillusionments for me was realizing that people are not always honest.  I always understood that people lie and I had even lied myself - so I was actually well aware that people are not always honest.  But I think maybe I thought lying was limited to situations where it wouldn't really matter, or when no one would really know the difference. 

I didn't think people lied about being honest.  Like, by saying "I'm telling you the truth, you can trust me".  Except what they are telling you and asking you to believe is actually not the truth, it is a lie. 

This is very disillusioning and really impacted how I percieve people and situations.  I now tend to look at a situation as a whole rather than a particular piece of information, I guess to see if all the pieces fit together.  I have to admit this has been quite helpful in recognizing the truth, or at least recognizing some inconsistency, which usually leads to uncovering the truth. 

I am careful not to let myself be consumed by distrust because of this though.  There have been times where I've been in full-on detective mode.  But today, I feel I have a general level of trust but continue to look at situations as a whole rather than hanging on one word, one conversation, one event when it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest. 

The reason I share this is because although realizing people have the capacity to be dishonest, even when it matters, completely disillusioned the idea that people are generally good and honest, it has also given me a perspective to see situations for what they are.  Whether someone is lying or telling the truth about something, you have to be able to take everything you know about the situation and trust your judgement on how to respond or proceed.  Easier said than done, I know.  And I'll admit, this is usually most effective in hindsight, unfortunately. 

I see so many of my friends and family get hung up on one little thing that is said or done and allow it to define an entire situation - sometimes the one little thing is the lie, and other times its the rest of the situation that is the lie.  Either way, it usually turns out that once we take the entire situation in to consideration, the inconsistency becomes apparent and only then can we address it and move on. 

The question then becomes... when is it appropriate to forgive dishonesty?  That'll be a topic for another day :)