Lesson Three: Be Honest
You might think it odd that I learned about honesty while taking a vacation, but it’s a fact.
My goals for my vacation were fairly simple: Goof off. Read. Hook a couple of rugs. Swim. Body-surf. Sleep. Walk the beach. Find some good seashells. Build some sandcastles. Eat good seafood. Buy a few souvenirs.
Other members of our party had other ideas, as I soon found out. One person suggested a day that would include an air-boat tour of part of the intercoastal waterway and miniature golf at a place that also has a giant maze. We all agreed, though I was to learn later that one person didn’t want to do the airboat at all, and several of us weren’t all that into the mini-golf.
I thought that the person who suggested mini-golf enjoyed it. Turns out that the person thought my kids enjoyed it and wanted them to have a good time. My kids are always begging to go to Putt-Putt … but it’s because they want to drive the go-karts and bumper boats. Oh, and play in the ginormous arcade. They find actual miniature golf boring and frustrating. And I’m afraid I feel the same way. It just makes me feel stupid, because I have no hand-eye coordination at all.
BUT I didn’t say any of this at the time, because I thought the other person liked mini-golf, and I didn’t want to be a spoil-sport. So we ended up spending an outrageous amount of money to play mini-golf, when no one really was all that interested. And the maze turned out to be equally disappointing.
Had I been honest and said, “We’ll do mini-golf if that is what everyone wants, but neither the kids nor I really care for it,” I would have saved us all a lot of money and frustration. We wouldn’t have driven 45 minutes each way; we wouldn’t have spent two hours playing a game no one cared about, and we would have had another half-day of beach-combing, body-surfing, and swimming to enjoy.
It seems a small thing, but, in the end, everyone would have been happier with the additional beach time.
And then there was the air-boat tour. Now, I enjoyed it immensely. So did my boys. But there was one person who didn’t want to go. And if they’d simply said, “I’d rather just stay here at the hotel … y’all go and have a great time,” no one would have been offended or upset. As it was, the person came along, but grumbled about the expense and the long trip and the quality of the tour … and even though we pretty much ignored it, the fact is that it did detract a little from the fun of the day. No one likes to think that they’ve forced someone else to do something that they are not enjoying.
Be honest, even in the smallest things. If you don’t like something, say so. If you don’t want to do something, say so. If you can’t afford something, admit it. You will be happier in the end.