DailyJim: Withholding the truth because of the fear and uncertainty of the punishment

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is the episode for Monday, April 22nd, 2024. And today I want to talk about withholding the truth because of fear and uncertainty of the, what? Fear and uncertainty of the punishment.

So, I was talking with a friend today, and he was telling me about a woman that he had dated before, and when they were dating, she had a kid, a very young kid that had a condition that may have been a lifelong condition that required a lot of care and attention, supervision from the parent. And he told me that he found out quite early from somebody else that it was actually her kid but she didn't tell him for three years that it was his kid her kid.

And it really got me thinking about why do we not tell people the truth about what's going on why do we not open up what are we afraid i think a lot of times it's fear i can relate to myself i mean so like i think about it in a personal relationship maybe if she were to open up and say that it was her kid maybe the guy would leave maybe one you know outcome is that he leaves another outcome is that he yells at her and blames her for not telling him and you know as time passes more and more, that punishment could become even more severe. Maybe he gets so angry that she lied to him that he physically assaults her. Maybe he does something to the kid. You know, maybe this can be the fear. Maybe he just shrugs his shoulders. Maybe the punishment is he laughs and kind of gives a side eye or rolls his eyes and said, yeah, I already knew. Yeah. The range of punishments can be so drastic. It can be so, everything from very tiny to very large and maybe even death. I mean, anything from a literal slap on the wrist or even softer than that to death or to no punishment.

And that's just in personal relationships. But how does this change when we start talking about relationships at work? What happens if we don't tell the truth at work? What happens if we do tell the truth? It's not even so much the fear of not telling the truth. Often I think we're more afraid of telling the truth and the consequences and the punishment that comes from that. So what happens if somebody knows that a particular road is being built with lower quality materials? Do they say something? If they don't, maybe the road ends up having worse quality. But what if they're building an airplane and they see that a bolt is not being screwed on tightly? If they say it maybe they get fired maybe they don't get fired maybe they get put into a worse position in the company maybe worse things happen you know maybe somebody tries to come and kill them maybe somebody makes fun of them on the internet maybe some somebody will uh defame them on the internet over and over again maybe people create stuff with ai and nowadays with the internet that things can really spiral out of control. But we don't know the uncertainty of what's going to happen and what type of punishment we might receive for it. We just don't know. But when we don't tell the truth in a relationship, in a workplace, what can happen? What is the punishment of not telling the truth? Why are we not afraid of not telling the truth? I remember when I was in college or university or whoever's listening to this whichever word you use and I took a class I think it was on business communication and it talked about how I believe it was the space shuttle one of the space shuttles had an accident where it blew up and they did a, investigation to see what happened I believe it was a communication problem where people just didn't communicate openly about what was actually happening and I think this happens in a lot of organizations where people know something is wrong, but they just don't say it. Again, probably for fear of punishment. Google talked about this as psychological safety in some ways. And just how does this play out on so many levels of our lives? And why do we have, I mean, I think it's okay to have the fear of the punishment, but shouldn't we also have the fear fear of not telling the truth, like the punishment or the consequences of not telling the truth and not being open.

So if you heard earlier in the episode, I said this is the episode for Monday, April 22nd. And if you're in the Eastern time zone, you'll know that it's probably still Monday, the 22nd. I am currently in Kenya. I'm on the other side of the world. And it's a question I've been asking myself. Is me doing this episode something that's going to bring punishment? Am I breaking a law in some way? Is me fixing the website, if it breaks while I'm here, is that breaking the law? Is me talking and meeting somebody, is that breaking law? And if it is breaking the law, what's the consequence? Like what's the punishment? I don't know. I have no idea. It could be anything from something tiny to something huge. And that's kind of just the legal consequence or the legal punishment. But what is kind of social punishment if I do something that goes outside of social norms or outside of cultural norms? I think the uncertainty is even more palpable over here, but the uncertainty is there in the US when it comes to like when I'm at home and then there's, well, did I fill out my tax forms properly or did I do this properly? Or what punishment is going to be wrought upon me if I didn't do this thing correctly? And I may not even know what the thing is or the thing may be way too complicated for me to understand. And so it's just, I noticed that I have this fear a lot in myself. I'm even afraid, this fear of opening up and telling the truth. I'm even afraid to tell the truth about the fear that I have about telling the truth on these things because, oh, maybe that draws more attention to it and then that will cause punishment to come upon me. And so I just wonder how often we get stuck on this. I mean, I think I do a lot where I get so stuck on just not knowing what the punishment's going to be and not knowing if I can handle it, frankly. Thank you. And, but that's the, I think getting so focused on the punishment of telling the truth and not also focusing on the uncertainty of the punishment of not telling the truth. How much does holding an emotion, how much does keeping secrets, how much does hiding things affect our health? How much does it affect our relationships? How much does it affect our societies, our companies, our technologies, our way of interacting with life and the people that we care about the most? How does that impact them? What is the punishment for withholding the truth instead of the punishment for saying the truth or at least speaking our truth and being more honest so i don't really know the answer i just know i feel a lot around a lot of fear around it and uh i think it's okay to feel that fear uh it's kind of grateful it's trying to keep me alive and keep me healthy and happy and free and all these funny all these things um but yeah i don't know. So maybe the idea is to think a little more about, uh, what the fear and the uncertainty of, withholding the truth, not just the fear and uncertainty of telling the truth and the punishments that come with, with either of them and both of them. I don't know. I hope that made some sense, but, uh, I will talk to y'all tomorrow if, uh, I overcome my fear, if the courage rises. Ciao.