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Leave Your Mark — essays and old wisdom on living well.

Reflections

Living Your Truth Is Not the Same Thing as Living Truthfully

Connect Fix Yourself First

Two people in silhouette talking across a table by a tall window, one with glasses gesturing with both hands, blue sea and green lawn beyond the glass
Photo by Christian Agbede on Unsplash

“Living your truth” sounds like courage, and sometimes it is. But listen to how the phrase actually gets used and you’ll often hear a door closing. “That’s my truth” ends the conversation. Nobody can argue with it, because it isn’t offered as a claim about the world. It’s offered as a fact about you, and you can’t be wrong about yourself. Can you?

The other half of the room has its own version, delivered at a higher volume: “I’m just telling it like it is.” It sounds like the opposite. It’s blunt, tough and unbothered by anyone’s feelings. It does exactly the same job. Anyone who objects isn’t disagreeing with you. They just can’t handle the truth. Either way, the speaker has built a position nobody can reach, and has called the wall honesty.

That’s the trait under both phrases: making yourself impossible to correct. And I know the second one from the inside. Being blunt comes easily to me, and “I’m just being honest” is a very comfortable place to stand when what I actually said was careless. None of this means your experience doesn’t count. If you’ve lived something other people haven’t, that deserves to be heard. The trouble starts when the experience stops being something you share and becomes something you hide behind.

Fix Yourself First doesn’t ask you to stop speaking up. It asks whether you are willing to be wrong or to change your mind. Living truthfully is the stance that answers yes. It’s a truth that’s allowed to find you wrong. It means hearing “I think you’re mistaken,” checking it, and changing when it’s right, even when that costs you the last word. Both slogans let you keep your eyes shut while sounding like they’re wide open. The truthful version keeps them open, including when the view is of you.

So this week, the next time you feel “that’s just my truth” or “I’m just telling it like it is” rising in your throat, swap it for one plain sentence: “Here’s what I think. Tell me where I’m wrong.” Then do the hard part. Listen to the answer as if it might be right.