Tbh

To be honest with you, I’d much rather be watching the entirety of Kath and Kim for the second time this year (it’s only February) as opposed to sitting down for the tenth time to mull over what it means to be better than just nice. I mean, I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but it turns out I was right in saying this whole being a fucking good cake business tastes like stale vegemite sandwiches. After a couple of weeks’ worth of reflection and introspection (because I’m so *lisp* spiritual), I’ve done a lot of overthinking on honesty, and proved to myself that it isn’t as pretty as the dipshits who write poetry would make it out to be (ahem, me, I’m the dipshits). Being honest really is messy, it feels uncomfortable, and it sounds a lot like lengthy whinges to my housemate and wussy mutters as I try to spit out the being honest bits to myself or whoever else needs to hear it. 

In short, figuring out how to be properly honest is really hard (and writing about it is pretty hard too).  

Just to backtrack for a sec, last month we talked about how nice it is to be nice. We also talked about how being nice is a bit useless. To make it our life’s mission statement is honestly just a cop out from living with true chunk and hutzpah. I mean, I understand why we choose to just be nice, it can feel lovely; but I also think that we choose nice for ourselves because to live with stronger life values means we’ve got to get off our mental butts and figure out what it is we actually want to live for. That is really, really hard. It’s so much easier to just go with whatever will float you day by day; but, like I said, I’m not down for just being nice right now. And so I’ve done some groundwork and have kind of figured out that in order to be authentic and sincere with both yourself and with others you’ve got to be gutsy enough to face your own honest wants and needs. 

In the words of Kath Day-Knight, “you need to get out and go inside yourself to search your chasms for meanings”.

The more I’ve decided to be honest with myself in searching those chasms for meanings, wants and needs, and then asserting them into my reality, the more I’ve felt the hollowing of my chest cavity like somebody’s been intensely excavating my insides and chucking them out for nobody to pick up and only for me to leave behind. Learning how to be honest begins with completely restructuring your heart to get rid of all of the gunk that used to serve you, and then being attentive enough to the emptied space to see what truly calls back. That’s the poetic way of putting it. What I basically mean is that you’ve got to take the time to de-bullshit your priorities (people and things), and then shut the fuck up so you can actually figure out what feels or is logically right for you. If you sit still for long enough (times vary from person to person), I’m 95% certain you’re bound to hear your own answers. 

In doing that for ourselves we also have to deal with tricky things like the fact that our wants and needs are not going to align with the expectations of others; that in doing so may mean we need to let go of people and things (even the ones we love); and, scarier still, that in realising our wants and needs we often times need to let go of certain parts of ourselves. That last point is particularly terrifying, because if you’ve been harboring your wants and needs behind a thick wall of nice, the thought of unleashing them feels like letting go of a perfectly curated image you think to be true of yourself and just hoping you don’t cave in and around all of this freshly cleared out space inside.  

Oh man, do I feel all of that. 

Again, this is all very hard and scary and extremely boring to have to tend to. But I’m about a month and 700 words into the philosophy now, and I’ve convinced myself that if we really want to be honest with ourselves and with others, these foundations are fundamental. You can’t be honest or upfront with anyone if you don’t know what you want and need; and to go about any kind of relationship or situation without at least trying to sort that shit out for yourself is how you end up fucking people around (just don’t do that, okay? It’s rubbish.)  Add a touch of lack of assertion and you’re well on your way to being the worst cake ever (even if your frosting is icy and your sprinkles alluring).     

Figuring these things out for ourselves, and making the decisions to act on those realisations, is as painful as having your heart broken; but I feel like if we’re going to live life with chunk and hutzpah we’ve got to do those cognitive hard yards. You’ve got to be brave enough to let certain things go, roll with all of the different kinds of change, and let the processes break you while you’re at it. Because, the thing is, once we’ve given into the difficult feelings that come with figuring out all of what it means to be honest – soon enough it doesn’t hurt so much. And as soon as it doesn’t hurt so much, our bodies grace us with the feelings of elation and peace. It’s like our bodies are saying to us, “oh, you silly duffer. See? You did fine... Now, go out there and do the honest thing again.”

I know, right? You have to be honest again. And again. And then again after that. It never stops. Because the thing about honesty is that it’s this transient value that moves with our age, where we live, with our health, what we do, who we love; and the ways in which we exist with all of those things changes so dramatically from one moment to the next. To be honest for any one person is never going to mean the same thing for very long. We people weren’t designed to be stagnant, and to nurture our innate ability to be honest means we don’t have to end up like stale vegemite sandwiches ourselves. There's so much behind being honest, and I’m certain that to live that way is so much heartier than just being nice. 

And, look, I’m going to have to tack a disclaimer to the end of every blog post just to say I’m not very good at whatever I’m writing about; because I'm not very good at whatever I'm writing about. I struggle with being honest like I struggle with being caught up in being nice. But that’s okay, I’m figuring things out, I want to get better, and these hearty values sure do give me some meaty content to think about. To follow on from being honest, I think I’ll write about being assertive next month. No, wait. Next month, I’m going to write about being assertive (better).

Until March,

Meg x 

Date: 16^th February 2020 

Credits:

My Housemate (for listening to me whinge)

My Aunty (for introducing me to Cheryl Strayed)

Cheryl Strayed (for the quote, “be brave enough to break your own heart”)

Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

Everyone I’ve had to be honest to

Kath and Kim (duh)

Nice

I want to be liked all day, every day, by everyone and by anyone; because if I’m completely honest with you, and with myself, I’m a slut for validation. No, I’m not just talking about getting a couple of likes on an Instagram selfie; I’m talking about the kind of validation that feels even more satisfying than a little bit of narcissism. I’m talking about the validation that comes from baking cakes for my friends, wishing good morning to three strangers in a row, and saying yes to absolutely everyone. I’m talking about being nice, and doing nice things, and being the nicest person, because we all know how sucky the world is right now and wouldn’t it be so much nicer if we took the time to do something nice?

In a world as grim as the news makes it out to be, and in a time where so few people in charge seem to give an actual shit, doing nice things, for me, not only means taking a small amount of responsibility in these dire times to make a positive difference in someone else’s life – it also means I get to feel good, in an undeniably selfish way.   

I do nice things because the instant gratification I get from doing them feels a lot like how my friends look when they take a bite of my baking (orgasmic, if you were wondering). It feels nice to be nice; and making a conscious effort to be nice has held me in good stead as far as having a reasonably likeable reputation goes. As stated per my introduction, I like to be liked; but what I’ve recently realised is that I go after these hits of nice-feelings like a rat in some scientist’s experiment box, constantly tapping at a button for any hint of a tasty treat that sounds a lot like: “yes, Meg, you’ve done the right thing.” 

Some people use alcohol, others use drugs, I use saying sorry all the time and incessantly offering to do the dishes at someone else’s house party. Being nice is my addiction; and not only is the chase tiring, it’s also quite unhealthy, unnatural, and not necessarily kind at all. Sure, it’s definitely on the more socially acceptable end of “what people are allowed to be addicted to”; but when overdone, it can consume you, your health, and, without an iota of dramaticism, influence your identity and how you go about giving your life meaning. 

That isn’t a cue for you to fill my inbox with “oh, but, Meg, you’re the most nicest person I know!"I mean, thanks, I guess, but that’s really not what I’m trying to get out of this. 

What I’m getting at is that being nice (while fun and orgasmic) is my vice; and, like what I assume to be true of most people and their vices, my vice is exceptionally good at puttying up the holes in my self-esteem, weedling its way into my self-image, and planting itself so firmly in the middle of my psyche I have seemingly no choice but to say, “I am intrinsically a nice person. This is who I am. Me, a nice person, whether you like it or not (but please, seriously – like me).” 

This of course becomes problematic when I do something I believe to be nice, and the response isn’t as validating as my fragile ego needs it to be. Or worse still, when I (like the human I am) do something that isn’t nice, and then proceed to drown in my own self-pity because I haven’t lived up to this ridiculously inaccurate belief of who I am or who I should be. To chase the highs I crave from doing nice things is ultimately centring my identity around a flimsy rewards system and setting myself up for failure and weak self-esteem; because, basically put, I’m not an intrinsically nice person. And nor is it possible for anybody to be nice all of the time (shock horror to the emotionally well-adapted of you out there). 

We people are constantly changing in demeanour and manner, and to place all of one’s worth in a single characteristic is damaging, because you begin to tell yourself that to be anything but that one characteristic (nice) is undesirable and to some extent punishable. It’s like how in some toxic relationships you learn to only behave in one way with the other person; because you know, if you present any differently, they’re going to go off their tree and berate you for even breathing. It’s like that, but you’re doing these toxic things to yourself (you deserve so much better). 

To make the whole self-reflection thing even trickier: I’ve realised I’ve been eating myself alive over something that isn’t even that meaningful. Being nice is lovely, sure, but in the scheme of things it’s only superficial; especially if we’re comparing it to things like kindness, love, trust and honesty. You know, the real things that matter. Delicious cakes are great, but honest intentions are even better; and I’d much rather root my identity in what it means to be true as opposed to how many brownie-points I can rack up amongst the people I know. To play on the cake theme just a little more: being nice is the behavioural equivalent of looking pretty. Again, so lovely, but at the end of the day it’s just the frosting on top of what should essentially be a really fucking good cake.

I want to be a really fucking good cake. The only difference between that cake and me is that my honest intentions aren’t always going to be delicious. Being trusting and kind, honest and loving aren’t necessarily going taste nice; in fact, I can tell you for a fact that they often taste like stale vegemite sandwiches. Saying no, having boundaries, being educated, having opinions, loving who you love, being yourself, and generally rubbing other people the wrong way are all examples of honesty, trust, love and kindness: I have difficulty with all of them. But I can only believe that living with these stronger intentions will be so much more rewarding than simply going after the superficial hits that come with complimenting strangers and saying sorry all the time; because I’d much rather live on the many strengths of my own character than the tidbits of validation that may be thrown at me from anybody else. Honesty, trust, love and kindness may not immediately sweeten this already sucky life; but they’re going to make for a damn substantial cake in the long run. 

And, to be honest, none of this means I’m going to stop baking for my friends and giving my bus seat to old people (I’m a really good baker and old people tell me I’m delightful); it just means I’m choosing to work towards something better for those niceties to sit on. I’m still working out exactly how to do that, and I’ve been told I’ll be working it out for the next 60 or so years, but perhaps we could talk a little about it in my next blog post. Title: Meg Figures Out How to Not be a Shit Cake (but, like, I actually talk about how to be honest and stuff). Yeah, that sounds good to me. 

Until February, 

Meg x

Date: 14th January 2020

Credits:

My Housemate (who is getting really good at saying no)

Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck)

My Psych Lecturers at SCU (they’ve started teaching me about behaviourism, relationships and addiction)

My Psychologist (for, you know, all the psychotherapy)