Honesty

Is it always the best policy?

In my opinion,  Yes!

But that doesn't mean it is easy.

Sometimes the honest thing can be easy to rationalize when it isn't in our favor. Recently my husband found a great deal on a flat screen monitor. Of course when he went to buy it they were all  sold out. He did the next best thing and went to another store that advertized that they price match They had the monitor and he left feeling he had got a great deal. When he got home, upon closer inspection, he saw that they had given him a larger monitor than the advertized size. Talk about a great deal getting better. Of course the honest thing was to take it back but it meant time. My daughters remark was, "but it was their fault. You did nothing wrong?" True, but was it honest? For us this decision was easy for we couldn't fit the larger monitor in the allowed space.

What about those time when the honest thing isn't obvious? The other day I bought some yogurt and used a coupon. It was buy six and get 40 cents off. While checking out the checker sure seemed to be doing a lot of transactions  I figured she was just making a lot of mistakes and didn't think anything of it.  A few days later, when I was doing our finances and going through the receipts, I happened across the receipt for the yogurt. I'm still not sure what had happened but as I looked over the receipt I wondered if she had scanned the receipt six times.  That would have meant I got 40 cents off each thing of yogurt instead of 40 cents of all six. I wasn't sure, though, since I had used quite a few coupons that day. I had to stop and wonder what was the honest thing?

Sometimes the honest thing is so inconvenient. Take yesterday, I had bought some butter. I told the checker I had 12 boxes. After coming home, while putting the butter in the freezer, I casually counted the boxes. Things seemed a little more than 12. Sure enough, after carefully counting, I had 14 boxes, not 12. Immediately there was no question I needed to pay for those two boxes. I tried calling the store to see if they could just charge my credit card. Nope!. So of course I had to drive back to the store. Let's just say I hit every red light on the way. When I got to the store I couldn't find a parking place (it's a pretty small store).My daughter and I circled around to the other side of the store, which meant waiting for the light, and again no parking place. We again drove around, waiting again for the light, and proceeded to wait until someone came out of the store. It would have been so easy just to say it wasn't worth it for two boxes of butter. Especially since it was lunch time and we both just wanted to go home and eat. Talk about adversity when you are trying to do what is right.

Being honest is often the harder thing to do. It can be inconvenient and most often not in our favor. Over the years I have learned, though, that the peace of mind that comes when I do the honest thing far out weighs any inconvenience or great deal I may have gotten. I am also being an example to my children that honesty is important, which probably was the main point of the situation in the first place.