I've been having this internal debate within me in trying to resolve how best to embark on this journey of self improvement with regards to disguising/concealing the truth.
Just 2 years back, I have learnt the hard way of shutting down the entire emotional system when it comes to dishing out hard truths. I developed the routine of clamming up and refusing to say a shit about what's on my mind because I know the truth is going to hurt. My mom hated this aspect of me. I became like that in that relationship. She faulted him for causing me to be like that. Slowly but surely, I not only reacted in such a manner in the relationship, I started behaving like that towards everything else in my life. Anything that bothers me, gets stuck in there, swallowed into the deep recesses of my mind, any excess probably flowed out through the form of tears that I allow to fall, to make myself feel better. A sort of therapy I learned to adapt to the shut down of my emotional system. I appear detached to friends while becoming the most rational person. In that short 3-4 years, I have effectively shut out my emotions almost completely from everything else I do. I am able to make decisions without allowing emotions to interfere. It became a boon when I had to make important objective decisions, but it became a bane in my social life. Only friends who really knew me, got to experience the vulnerability - that emotional side of me. I became less sympathetic over the years. It's because of this that I tell Chanel that she has always been the one who reminds me what it is like to be human. She makes up for my lack of emotions. She donates readily to dubious organizations, she buys tissue paper without so much a thought about how much money she has left for herself.
Nevertheless, despite being more cautious with the giving of money, I am ever ready to offer a helping hand. I recall getting out of the car once while waiting for my mom at an elderly apartment, just to help a wheelchair bound person go up the ramp, and pushed him all the way to the lift lobby. He kept thanking me profusely, I would have done it with or without the appreciation. It required no thinking on my part. And it felt natural for me to do so. Another time when his mom had an operation, I ever so gently wiped her lips and face to keep her fresh. Something I never thought about as well. These little actions that I did without considering at all remind me that I am still capable of feeling, and giving. I realised I have a soft spot for the elderly. My heart goes all out to want to take very good care of them.
Which leads me back to my point on dealing with the truth. I have been consistently making the effort to find myself back from the shut down of my emotions. I go the extra uncomfortable step of airing my opinions in the most forthright manner. I always believe that an act can be changed. Criticising someone's action is alright because it allows him to improve on himself, but criticising someone as a form of insult adds no value. It's like saying you're so slow you can't even do this job properly vs. i'm sure you can do this job if you did in in this preferred way. The approach is different. And I am acutely aware when and how to separate constructive criticisms from insults. But I realised, not everyone has the ability to. And I cannot impose my assumption on everyone when I dish out the supposedly 'hard' truths. It hurts, because then, the person who cannot differentiate these two tends to take it personally.
I think it takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence. But it also takes a lot more sensibility to speak up when it's time to because open communication brings a relationship much further. It allows the other party to understand what goes on in your mind and removes the need for second-guessing. Remaining silent could be a temporal way of dealing with unhappiness in the short run but hurt and anguish builds up in the long run because matters that ought to be dealt with are merely shoved under the carpet in the name of love. Slowly, love becomes an obligation and a responsibility. With the involvement of these two, doesn't that make loving someone become a job? Something that ought to be done, rather than something that I want to do purely because I love it so much. If you loved your job, you wouldn't call it work.
李宗盛 puts it best in the lyrics he wrote for 伤痕:
虽然爱是种责任
给要给得完整
With that reasoning, how am I to embark on this journey of self improvement to conceal/disguise the truth in order not to offend or injure people I care about?
My mom would probably be very delighted to know I'm making so much effort to speak up more than ever before with what's on my mind, but probably, those around me have to bear with my ever-critical comments I often hesitate to say. To speak or not to speak the truth. I still have much to learn. And I need some signs when I should do either.
And side-tracking from speaking the truth, I have always replaced words with actions in the way I express love. Many would categorise this as a guy-thing because women tend to be more expressive with words and talk about their little declarations of love. I don't know how high the correlation is, but ever since I stopped expressing my thoughts to people, I have taken in my stride that I will express them through my actions. It's something I've been doing for quite a while now, being the man in the household, carrying 5 plastic bags full of groceries in each hand when we do grocery shopping, just so my mom would not need to carry anything. She understands it's my way of expressing love. Or when I wake up at unearthly hours to send my brother to camp, pick him up from his friends' places, send him off to wherever he wants, despite him not bothering to pick me up/send me off whenever I was in dire need. I believe that actions speak much louder than words. And seeing how I have somehow mastered the guy-way of expressing love, maybe it's time I ought to embrace the girl-way as well. Which means I talk about my feelings more often, even if it hurts. Right?
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