Is Transparency As Clear As We Think?

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity. Dalai Lama

Transparency is a term that I had never heard of before and then suddenly it was being said all the time, by everyone.

It is weird but when ever I think of transparency, I think of Cling Wrap. I do not associate it with a virtue or moral compass. I see it being put over food, so it does not spoil. Maybe it is the same after all. If you try to hide things from people, they cause spoilage and rot over time don’t they.

When I was in school, we learned about the saying “Loose lips, sink ships.” Which always made sense to me. And then I grew up with a Father who told me to ever tell my business because people can use it against you. So even though I do try to have integrity in all of my dealings and life in general the idea of telling everything to everyone is quite foreign to me.

I think if you are in the position where you start a sentence with “Let me be transparent here…” then my first thought is what have you not been transparent about before since you need to preface it for your next sentence. It is like when someone gives you a backhanded comment like, “You look pretty today,” What the heck did I look like the other 364 days of the year? 

What concerns me is that being transparent is not necessarily being honest. I think when people hear the word, they think that they are now going to get all the truth. That is just naive. People are not wired to be totally honest. We try our best but even the most honest person I am sure has jiggered things to their favor no matter how small. It is just the human condition.

In fact, I am at the point now when I hear the word transparent or transparency I just shut down and stop listening. Again, I take it as a sinister word that I don’t completely trust. I feel like there has been a lot of thought put behind this word to condition us to accept it. 

So though I agree with the quote from the Dalai Lama above I would change it to “Using the word transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.”

And finally, words are just words. Anyone can say anything they like, but what their actions are can tell a different story. Where their lives are tells a different tale. Don’t just accept whatever line people hand you. Stop and think about the source and what they represent. If they come up devoid of the characteristics and virtues, you respect then spouting out how they are transparent does not really matter in the end does it?

Just something for you to ponder as you put your cling wrap over your chicken from tonight’s dinner and put it in the fridge before you go to bed.