Brave Honesty

"My happiness is up to me, so you are off the hook".  Some clever person made this up, and I'm inclined to play with it a bit, change it around and put a coaching spin on it, here I go. Your happiness is up to you, so I'm off the hook...I like this phrase either way, but I particularly like the message, which speaks to an accountability for each of us. People lie, they cheat, they lack integrity, not all people, but enough of them to cause a significant amount of pain for the people who trust them, believe in them, give them the benefit of the doubt, despite the red lie flags. One of the tell tail signs of a lie is blame.  The guilty, the liars, usually blame another, excusing themselves from responsibility, making a bid or plea for sympathy.  If there is a repeated theme, a never ending story of sameness, the story teller becomes suspect and trust erodes between them and their would be happiness helper. Another tell tale sign, complaining without changing~I ask you, what is the point?  Choice, always choice. We chose how we are treated, we chose how we treat others, we chose accountability or blame.  We can also chose to believe in our lie detecting abilities AND to honour ourselves and say NO to the liars and YES to The Truth.  Choice, what a gift. One last thing, we do a liar no favour by allowing the bad behaviour...they may never hear the Truth if no one is brave enough to speak it to them.