I’ve been thinking about transparency lately, and if you know me you’ve probably heard mention it at least once within the last few months. After reflecting for a while, it made me think of how comfortable, rather how uncomfortable, we really are with others. Or maybe I realised that I have a tendency to be too open with others?
Personally, I feel being transparent is being open and honest without any hidden agendas or motives driving your behaviour. For some reason, naive me couldn’t believe how rare this was in this day and age. It seems that our teenage years were driven mostly by emotion, making you see the world through such rose tinted glasses. Then you hit your 20’s, and if you’re a critical hopeless romantic* like me, theres quite an incongruence between logic, emotion and one’s actions.
There’s a linguistic concept called saving face within Politeness Theory. It theorises that the way we talk and act is driven by wanting to be perceived as desirable and to not threaten a polite view of yourself or to offend others (Read some of Brown & Levinson’s work if you can be bothered). Simply speaking, it’s generally a respect thing. This has always been one of the few theories that really stuck with me, which is why I felt it deserved the mention. Maybe it’s my part-Asian background which makes me notice this, but I swear this concept is close to non-existent now. Not with everyday people going about their everyday tasks. I’m speaking about within the world of the Tinder/instant gratification generation. I’ve still never been on Tinder, and have only lived these experiences through others, so feel free to point out if any of my judgements are inaccurate. It feels as if one may be polite, but this thing called respect seems to be close to non-existant. On the contrary, the one’s who are super polite and respectful can come across as too nice or too into you.. which seems to be another undesirable trait. Can anyone win? Not really. Like how can we even aim to be transparent when most of the population within my age bracket isn’t even genuine.
I’ve never really appreciated genuine characteristics more than now. It’s rare and luckily I’m surrounded by decent people. Obviously I’m picky and cautious – realistically I don’t like new people anyway. But in all seriousness, there’s nothing more stress relieving than spending time with those who you’re completely transparent with. I’m talking about the ones where you don’t even need to hide your insecurities, the ones that just get you, don’t judge and always have the best intentions (which includes being brutally honest when necessary).
I frequently remind myself that as humans we’re diverse in so many ways. People range from being up front while others are delicate and open one petal at time. This is the point where I get a little lost with how open to be. Too much and you can be perceived as too intense, while being too closed off and you’re conservative or cold. One day I’ll care less of what people think of me. Earlier this year, I found myself lacking the courage to be honest to people, because I knew that what I wanted to say wasn’t quite what they wanted to hear. One of my closest friends then told me this: “you are not responsible for the feelings of others”. I don’t think a quote had been so relevant in my life. I’m currently still reminding myself of this every day, it’s SO hard to actually implement. But.. I’m getting there 😅 Happy Wednesday✌🏻
*yes, I’m making this a thing. If you you’re curious, let me know and I’ll attempt to explain it.
& the earth kept spinning 