Can we be honest and kind at the same time?
Yesterday I posted a coffeeshop review on instagram, kicking off a fun little hobby where I’ll review coffeeshops in that way from time to time. In that first review, I challenged myself to be very honest and blunt about my experience of that coffeeshop.
Why did I challenge myself to do that? Because most of life I’ve had a tendency to be kind or nice, and to downplay my experiences, feelings, and opinions for the sake of ‘being nice.’ There’s a part of me that prioritized not being abrasive over be bluntly honest and direct. You may have heard me talk about this before as the “conflict aversion” I’ve been working on and transforming over the past 4 years. I’ve made progress, but the work continues.
In projects, hobbies, and activities in my life I like think there’s at least two layers: the thing, and the meta of the thing. Another way to say this is, “there’s the game, and then there’s the game inside the game.”
For example, with the coffeeshop review project, the game is to enjoy visiting coffeeshops and sharing about my experiences in them. I enjoy this because I profoundly love coffeeshops and I aspire to open and own one someday. The game inside the game is to do these reviews as a way for me to practice being uncomfortably honest and direct in my critique. Not as a way to be mean or to lord over the establishments on my high horse of judgement, but to simply grow as a person. I know being nice or kind is absurdly easy for me, so leaning the other way is my growth edge. So the game is to review coffeeshops for fun, and the game inside the game is embrace discomfort, own my voice and perspective, and share my thoughts without holding back or downplaying what I’m really thinking.
So this brings me back to the opening question:
Can we be honest and kind at the same time?
I ask this because I don’t want to view being truthful and being kind as mutual exclusives. For now, my working answer is: yes, we can be honest and kind. I want to be both but in that order of priority. I don’t yet fully know or understand HOW to do that, but I’m daring to believe it’s possible, and I’m determined to figure it out via direct experience.
What’s your take on the question?
Can we be honest and kind at the same time?
Why or why not?
I’d love to hear your perspective.