Always tell the truth, no matter what

I'm very proud of you, Kieran, because during the past year you told the truth, a very important principle that I'd always tried to instill in you before others decided to cruelly keep us apart. Thanks to you being honest, we likely will be able to again be with one another.

Unfortunately, you will find yourself surrounded by people who believe telling the truth is only important if it serves their selfish purposes. While lying may benefit them in the short term, over the long haul one's lies have a way of catching up with you. The result is that more harm comes to them because on balance more people than not believe in telling the truth.

Why is telling the truth so important? Because our reputation is our worth in society. Once we lie, our reputation suffers, sometimes to the point where we lose things important to us. The heartache of losing what we value always is worse than the trouble we might get into if we are truthful.

Being honest is important because lying is unfair to others. People make decisions based on the assumption that what we've told them is the truth. We should not be unfair to others because it violates the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as they would do unto you." We would not want others to be unfair to us, so we should not be unfair to them.