Radical Honesty - I'm not radical enough for this!

A friend recently told me they were practising 'radical honesty', I didn't bother asking what that was and so just made the assumption that it meant telling the truth all the time...sounds kinda fun, huh? It seems a little bit like an extension of my philosophy of 'I'm not doing anything I don't want to' or 'if I'm not having fun I just leave'. So because it sounded like a fun way of operating, I checked it out online.

Wikipedia tells me that radical honesty is:

Radical Honesty is a technique and self-improvement program developed by Dr. Brad Blanton. The program asserts that lying is the primary source of modern human stress, and that practitioners will become happier by being more honest, even about painful or taboo subjects. Blanton claims this form of honesty can help all human relationships since it "creates an intimacy not possible if you are hiding something for the sake of someone's feelings."

The Radical Honesty technique includes having practitioners state their feelings bluntly, directly and in ways typically considered impolite. For example, "I'm disgusted with you for X" where X is a statement of objective observation about the person towards whom the comment is being directed. People who practice Radical Honesty employ a collection of techniques to shift them out of acceptable norms of "white lying" for the purpose of having a more truthful relationship with themselves and others.

 Meh, that doesn't sound too hard, right? I like the sound of getting to say what I'm thinking and having stuff work out well because of it, although I'm struggling to see how telling someone they are dull and painful to be around would help create intimacy in the relationship, but it might be worth a crack.

A little further reading revealed a ripper of an article from Esquire.com (I only read it for the articles), which you can read here I Think You're Fat. It's pretty long, but I thought it was an awesome read. While the article proved to that there is no way I've got the guts to try this thing properly, it highlighted to me that several of the people I like the most already seem to operate along the lines of radical honesty with pretty damn good results. Perhaps there is something to this whole thing, if you're brave enough to try it - fortune favours the radically honest.

What if there's more than one answer?

I've spent a lot of time and energy worrying what to do with my life and why it "isn't happening" over the past few years. When I finally accepted that there wasn't going to be a bolt from the blue answer to what career would make turn me into one of those sickeningly happy people who get paid to do what they love, somehow I decided that I should channel my life's energy into becoming a wife and a mother....hmmm.

Thankfully, after a a few months of failing at this rather sketchy solution to addressing my life's purpose its finally becoming clear to me that for me there isn't just one purpose. I wasn't put on this earth to become a forensic accountant, pastry chef or supermodel, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't put on this earth just to be a wife and mother, although I'd still like to do those things eventually.

Instead of frustratingly trying to specialise and find the one niche that would satisfy all of my needs, I'm going to try to diversify. I like the idea of having several purposes, or projects on the go which all bring different things to the table. I'm not quite sure where this train of thought will lead, but just thinking it has made me feel lighter and free-er already. It turns out that the idea of having one true purpose has been making poor little commitment-phobic me quite claustrophobic.