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Honesty

The Best Policy

By Adrienne HugginsPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Honesty
Photo by Deena Englard on Unsplash

Four young girls, in their first year of college, decided to attend a party one night, just before their final exams. They hadn't expected to be out all night, but they were having so much fun they had lost track of time. One of the girls finally realized it was nearing three in the morning, and she ushered the other girls to get their belongings.

The girls had to be present in class for their final exams in four hours, and they knew they wouldn't have time to study, let alone the energy to get through the exam. They rushed back to their dorms and hopped into bed, just short of four o'clock, and they all managed to catch a quick nap.

Upon waking, one of the girls had an idea. After sharing her elaborate plan with the other three girls, they all unanimously agreed to talk to the Dean in hopes he would let them take the exam at a later day and time. The girls managed to find their worst clothing - one girl even found a ripped shirt she had planned on upcycling. They frazzled their hair and proceeded outside to look for dirt and mud. After applying mud to their clothing and dirt all over their faces, they rushed to the Dean's office.

The girls explained they had gone to a funeral the night before and on their way back to the dorms, they had a flat tire on a back road which was over thirty miles from the closest store. They explained to the Dean none of them even knew how to change a tire and had to call someone for help, but help didn't arrive until nearly three in the morning. They told the Dean they finally managed to get the spare on the car with the help of a friend, and then had a forty-five minute drive back to their dorms.

They continued on with their story, in hopes of gaining the Dean's sympathy so he might possibly agree to them taking their finals on a different day. They told the Dean they hadn't arrived back at their dorms until nearly four o'clock in the morning and explained they were extremely tired. They begged him to allow them a different day in which they could take their exams, since they didn't have time to prepare and, after all, they definitely were not in any shape to take the exams after being stranded and awake the majority of the night with a flat tire.

The Dean thought about this for a moment, and agreed to allow the girls to test in three days. They thanked him and proceeded back to their dorms to get some much-needed rest since, of course, they really had been up all night, only they were hung over from drinking the night before.

The girls spent the next three days studying hard for their exams, and on the third day, they went back to the Dean's office to complete their finals. The Dean placed each one of them in separate rooms and handed each of them a piece of paper. He explained that the exam only consisted of two questions - each worth 50 points.

The exam questions read:

1. What is your name?

2. Which tire was flat? A)Front driver's side, B) Front passenger's side, C) Rear driver's side, D) Rear passenger's side.

Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? It is a children's story told to children, to encourage honesty, about a boy who (twice) cried wolf - telling the townspeople a wolf was attacking the sheep - and on the third time, the townspeople did not come to his aid because they did not believe him.

The moral? If you lie, people will not believe you when you tell the truth. It is incredibly difficult to convince a person to trust you once that trust has been betrayed, and most of the time, the trust that existed before the betrayal will never be whole again.

Honesty is the best policy because it maintains trust. Trust is vital in a continuing relationship. If you cannot trust the person with whom you are in a relationship, how are you to have a longlasting relationship? Whether it hurts the other person's feelings or not, wouldn't you rather not break their trust and maintain that relationship than to lie, break their trust, and never be trusted wholly again?

Maintaining a healthy relationship means always being honest and forthcoming. Base your relationships on honesty and trust, for this could prevent a lot of heartache.

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