Two approaches to life, especially in the business or professional environment, characterize most human interactions. The first is the adversarial mentality; the second is the realistic mentality.
The adversarial mentality rests upon a series of illogical but (to some people) emotionally appealing ideas about how human beings can most effectively get along with one another.
Here are a few of the mistaken assumptions an adversarial person typically holds:
People are unworthy of trust until proven otherwise; they are guilty until proven innocent. To some, this might sound like a realistic although not ideal view. But is it even realistic? No. First of all, trustworthy people do exist in most settings. Yet if you start with the premise that nobody is trustworthy, then you will tend to treat them in a manner consistent with your expectation. You will be abrupt with them, you will act suspicious towards them, you will not maintain eye contact or show that you have any regard for them at all. Thus, your expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you expect everyone to be untrustworthy, you treat them as such; because you treat them as such, then they do in fact become your enemies rather than your friends.
Everyone else is dishonest, so I might as well be dishonest too. Since dishonesty is usually exposed over the long run, how practical is it? Once you develop a reputation for dishonesty, people will not be comfortable doing financial or emotional business with you. Even more fundamentally, dishonesty creates a breach between yourself and reality, between yourself and the facts, that is not only stressful to maintain but also harmful to your self-esteem and self-worth. Because true happiness depends upon accepting reality, you compromise that happiness by establishing a gap between your mind and the real world. Consequently, the basic “dilemma” about lying should not be: “Will I get caught or not?” but rather, “Do I want to live in reality or not?” To a rational, healthy, life-valuing individual, the answer is obvious.
Conflicts of interest are inevitable and unavoidable. Whether or not this is true depends upon how one defines “self-interest.” If one defines self-interest as doing whatever you feel like for any reason whatsoever, then conflicts of interest certainly are inevitable. If I feel like stealing your car, and you do not want me to take your car, then there exists a conflict between your interest and my interest. If, however, one defines “self-interest” in rational and objective terms, then no such conflicts exist among sensible, honest people who respect others’ psychological boundaries and property rights. A rational person wants to pursue his goals and obtain happiness, but he also expects (indeed, wants) to pay for it and does not want to impose force or fraud on anyone else. So, if a rational person covets your car, he’ll figure out a way to purchase his own. Likewise, if you can find a work environment where people are expected to respect each other and are appropriately punished for failing to do so, then conflicts of interest need not be inevitable.
Resources are limited; life is a “zero-sum” game. Quite the opposite is true. Given the nature of reality, good side-effects often result from otherwise negative events. Losing a job can be a terrible experience; but it can also afford you the opportunity to try something different. Living in the city has the advantage of convenience and access to more cultural resources; even so, being transferred to the country allows the advantage of less crime and often friendlier people. One type of job offers one set of opportunities; another job offers another set.
Tradeoffs are everywhere. Even in tragic circumstances, such as death of a loved one, individuals have reported (after the grief subsides) discovering opportunities to pursue new types of relationships and activities they previously had not attempted. Life is not a zero-sum game where one person’s gain is always another person’s loss. If your neighbor makes a million dollars honestly, he has not stolen something from you; he has simply made a million dollars because he worked hard at selling something that is highly valued by others. Similarly, if your neighbor or coworker is happy, you should not resent and envy him for taking more than his “fair” share of the “happiness pie;” instead, try to figure out what principles he followed and apply those principles to your own life.
Realistic, rational assumptions contradict the ideas of the adversarial mindset. It is realistic to assume people are trustworthy until or unless objective reasons exist to think otherwise. Evil does exist, and irrationality does exist. But most people are not evil and irrational, at least not in a society where freedom and rationality are respected. If you assume everyone is irrational, you place yourself in a lose-lose situation: when you meet people who are in fact irrational, you have no way of distinguishing them from those who are healthy; and when you meet people who are decent and healthy, you are unable to recognize them and benefit from knowing them.
It is realistic and most certainly in your self-interest to be honest—if you define honesty as adherence to the facts of reality, and self-interest as being in touch with reality.
In order to understand honesty as a moral virtue, you must simultaneously understand the psychological benefits of staying in touch with reality and being honest with yourself at all times. You should be honest because you owe it to yourself to cope with and remain aware of the facts of existence. Honesty towards others is made possible by honesty towards yourself.
Perhaps the single greatest cause of psychological dysfunction is dishonesty with oneself. People deny, evade, and rationalize all kinds of problems until those problems become too obvious to ignore. Psychological denial, one form of self-deceit, allows individuals to excuse their loved one’s alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, or other forms of self-destructive behavior. Individuals who learn, at an early age, to introspect and be honest with themselves are much less likely to develop psychological and behavioral problems as adults. Awareness of your feelings and motives makes it harder for you to hurt yourself or hurt others.
Most people think of honesty as a selfless commandment, something good in theory but not workable in practice; something which requires self-sacrifice and selfless “nobility.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Honesty is selfish, a necessary and practical principle for both survival and happiness. Superficially, honesty sometimes seems impractical in a world where the majority presume it to be a moralistic commandment rather than a practical principle of life; but aren’t the majority also now suffering from prolonged stress, depression, anxiety, or experiencing other personal crises and adversarial divorces? “It’s a jungle out there,” sums up the way many people feel, and it’s not without merit because of all the wrong-headed ideas many of us succumb to in the first place.
Cynical liars have gained nothing from their cynical beliefs about honesty. It is realistic to assume that there are no inherent conflicts of interest among rational people. Disagreements, perhaps; but not conflicts of interest. In a rational society, as opposed to the semi-rational one in which we now live, everyone would leave everyone else alone. The childless atheist would not have to pay for the schooling of the Christian fundamentalist’s kids; nor would the Christian fundamentalist have to pay for the childless atheist’s health care. Instead of everyone being responsible for everyone else, everyone would be responsible for himself. Nobody would be allowed to impose force or fraud on anyone else, either through common criminal behavior or the political process of forced redistribution; everyone would have a right not only to the privacy of his bedroom, but also to the sanctity of his wallet. Responsibility for others would be a voluntary choice. Responsibility for oneself would merely be accepted as a fact of reality.
A conflict of interest certainly exists between a person who minds his own business and an irrational person who wants to impose force on him. This is why a limited government is necessary to protect us from those who would impose physical force upon us. Unfortunately, because we live in the era of activist government, many of us have no choice but to join political pressure groups to keep our interests from being sacrificed to those who want something we have (usually our money). But this is the fault of our political system and the dysfunctional ideas which made that system possible; it does not mean that the world, by its very nature, has to be an adversarial place.
It is realistic, as well, to approach life from an opportunity viewpoint as opposed to a zero-sum viewpoint. Those who look at the world from a zero-sum viewpoint are chronically angry, resentful, envious, and even hateful. They do not accept responsibility for their lives; they expect, and often demand, that others assume total or partial responsibility for them. They are often dishonest, evasive or manipulative, but have no difficulty rationalizing such behaviors since they see themselves as victims of reality while conveniently filtering out all evidence suggesting the contrary. They see everyone else’s gain as their own personal loss. They do not hold themselves at all responsible for their own failures, but they are quick and ready to pronounce a happy, successful person guilty as charged for taking more than his “fair share” of happiness. Psychotherapists typically encounter extreme examples of such individuals, and refer to them as “borderline personalities.” Whatever one chooses to label them, they are not representative of an orientation toward reality.
The opportunity-oriented person is the opposite of the adversarial borderline personality. The opportunity personality is reality-oriented, self-responsible, and, as a consequence, capable of achieving some degree of happiness, both fiscally and emotionally. He understands that optimism, grounded in reality, represents the best means to success in life. He does not waste time on cynical, adversarial, zero-sum victimology; he grasps that the real victims are the naive souls who accept such ideas.
Even if you agree with the realistic outlook and strongly favor it over the adversarial view, keep in mind that from time to time you might experience emotions which conflict with your conscious beliefs. If this is the case, do not condemn yourself for experiencing the contradictory emotions. Simply accept the fact you felt them, consciously correct and challenge them, and resolve not to act on them in future situations. With honest and consistent effort, you will gradually improve over time. A good therapist can help you in this task if you find it difficult. Repeated “reprogramming” measures such as these can help integrate and internalize the rational approach to life that, on the intellectual and conscious level, you have already accepted as your own.
Be sure to “friend” Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1