Day 155: Eustressed Out…

The truth will set you free, but first it will tick you off..

I was eustressed out this morning during my brief stop into our band practice. We were discussing our role as truth tellers and our beliefs around absolute truth. Is there such a thing as absolute truth? Does truth evolve as knowledge compounds? Are human beings truly capable of understanding a universal truth or just what’s true to us in this tiny moment of time?

Tough questions, even tougher answers.  If we want to be truth tellers as leaders, builders, partners, fathers, friends etc.. we better take some time to get crystal clear on what is true to us.  That is why we spend so much time working on, challenging, and unpacking your worldview.

My ego was flared this morning as I was told that I will never be a true builder if I can’t hit people with the truth. My identity was challenged. My own worldview and truth were challenged. He could be right, or maybe there is a nuance there. I don’t believe I have the absolute truth and thus I don’t believe its my job to impart an incomplete truth onto others.

But I believe it is my job to challenge people’s version of the truth and once they do the work to become crystal clear on what it true to them, its also my job hold them accountable to live it out.

In my worldview, most truths evolve as human knowledge compounds. This process is the healthy tension that our band experienced this morning and is best summarized by my favorite historian, Will Durant:

“So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it — perhaps as much more as the roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole.”

The truth is, I need to keep seeking more clarity on what is true to me and continue to uncover any universal and absolute truths to help move society forward.  And tell the hard truths when they need to be heard.

In the meantime, another truth is my son doesn’t care about what I’m writing about right now, he just wants to play peek a boo. And the truth is, that’s what I should be fully present in doing. 

What’s true to you? Are there universal truths? What truth needs dissected and challenged? Who in your world needs to hear some hard truth?

Lets get to work.