Honesty

I think the biggest lesson I've taken away from 2011 has been that of honesty. Self-honesty, that is - the kind of honesty that happens when you look yourself in the mirror.

Most of this year has been terrible. Not absolutely terrible, as in the kind of terrible you'd expect going through a concentration camp, say, but terrible enough to look back and know that I've made a mess of things, and that I'm now standing in a roomful of broken glass. The only way forward is to sweep it all up and throw it away, and fill the room (again) with crystal statues and polished mirrors and ice-glazed pieces. It's hard work, and I'm still sweeping.

I have learnt this year that I have exactly the kind of personality-type that's good at deluding him/herself. I shy away from brutal honesty. Not doing well in math? Don't worry, I tell myself, you can always catch up later. Co-founder not contributing code? Don't worry, I say, he's busy now, maybe he'll do so in the near future. Relationship not going well? Don't worry, I'm busy, I can always make it up to her later.

Except that I can't. You can't reverse things like ignoring your girlfriend and ignoring your math (and, no, I'm not comparing the two; though if I were the former would trump the latter in both joy and complexity). But these are things that I've lost last semester, that I'm now trying to win back.

Life is comfortable when you don't have to face up to the hard truths of your life. And I'm sure that we all can be very good at self-delusion — the couple in a relationship that's going nowhere; the person who's self-deluded about his or her body weight; the girl who can't sing but wants to be a superstar.

The truth is often called brutal for a reason. Facing up to it forces one to be a little uncomfortable with oneself, at least for a little while. But I'm beginning to see that such discomfort is necessary to grow in life, and running away from hard truths isn't going to get me anywhere.

(There is a caveat, of course - too much discomfort and you go into panic mode, which then spirals into a destructive cycle of self-loathing, and so I suppose there's an upper limit on all this introspection).

At any rate: no more self-delusion. It's time for some proper life.