“This is the truth!” (my version of it, that is….)

The other day, I came across this true story submitted by Edward Oppenheimer to Reader’s Digest titled, “My Newspaper Was Different”:

A customer walked into my clothing shop and asked to see the pants that were advertised in the paper that day. “We don’t have an ad in the paper today,” I told her. She insisted I was wrong, so I got a copy of the paper, and we went through it, eventually landing on an ad for pants from another local store. Exasperated, the customer glared at me and said, “In my newspaper, the ad was for this store!”

“In my newspaper, the ad was for this store!”

As I observe how today’s leaders and ordinary folk talk, I notice more emphasis on “me”, “What’s in it for me?”, the sense of entitlement, or the ubiquitous acronyms “IMO”/“IMHO”. Just like the customer in that anecdote, more people push for their version of the truth, no matter that it stems from their “colored lenses” or their own biases. Apparently, living in probably the most enlightened period in world history has made us human beings mistakenly believing that each one of us has exclusive rights/sole ownership to truth! But a review of humanity’s history actually shows the opposite!

So what is truth? Merriam-Webster has the following definitions:

• the body of real things, events, and facts
• a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true
• the body of true statements and propositions
• the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality; fidelity to an original or to a standard

I personally believe that for something to be accepted as truth, it needs to have a basis or a standard, AND has been tested by time, remaining unchanged, and accepted by most, if not all. Just because I say something to be true, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the truth! It must be backed by “real things, events, and facts”, as the definition above states.

The need for something to have a basis or standard reminds me of the importance of a plumb line in the early days of construction. In order to ensure that something being built was straight and not tilted, a plumb line was used. In its rudimentary form, it was a string with a weight tied at one end, like the image above. The idea was to hang this perpendicular to the structure being built, and check whether the structure was indeed straight and not tilting, like the Tower of Pisa!

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. — Oscar Wilde

Throughout history, the people who made the most and lasting impact on the world understood the importance of truth based on something time-tested and unchanged. One such man was Dr. Martin Luther King.

Today, we regard Dr. King as someone who lived a life true to his ideals and beliefs, and one who has impacted folks near and far! His widely popular “I have a dream” speech resonates to a lot of people, largely because (I believe) it came from his heart and his very core, which in turn came from his strong faith! He didn’t need a “mask” (as Oscar Wilde suggested) in order to tell the truth. He spoke from his heart, his true self! That is why he was able to state this truth, as he decried segregation in America:

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

So what “truths” have we believed in today? Have these truly been tried and tested? Let us remember, that just because someone says something is true doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. We need to be careful with who or what we allow to influence us. The success of our life’s journey depends on that.