Should “Acting honestly” be Synonymous with “Acting Intelligently”?

Behaving honestly does not guarantee success, but on the contrary, it could be damaging to our interests, especially in the short term. If that is so, then why should we care to behave honestly? I think it could be due to the following reasons.

Reducing Stress

Being honest is less stressful, as we do not have to push our minds to recall all the details that we had concocted in the past to leverage all the gains emanating out of our dishonesty. This puts a lot of pressure on our mind — creating severe mental-stress.

Increasing Credibility

Behaving honestly increases our credibility. With increased credibility, we can raise the probability of “trust” bestowed upon us by others. This is critical, as it smoothens the interpersonal transactions that we need to undertake to nurture relationships. Doing so helps in creating sustainable value both in our personal and business lives.

Enhancing Self-esteem

We can fool the whole world, but we cannot fool ourselves, as we alone know the facts even if others don’t. Hence, behaving dishonestly decreases our self-esteem and pride, thereby diminishing us from within, thereby substantially reducing our “satisfaction levels” that we intend to accomplish through that process.

Improving Decisions

Being honest helps us in being “truly decisive” without getting confused by the uncertainties of the situation. This is significant, as it is impossible to predict the “optimality” of our decisions in the face of huge ambiguities. Since we cannot predict the future, in the hindsight all decisions might look suboptimal, thereby increasing our levels of dissatisfaction. Decisions anchored on the principle of honesty, irons out this confusion — mitigating all regrets — leading to peaceful and satisfied mind.

Enabling Reciprocity

In general, we tend to reciprocate behaviour meted to us by others. Hence, being honest helps in increasing the probability of others reciprocating us with similar behaviour — strengthening our relationships.

Increasing Satisfaction

Being dishonest can definitely enhance “pleasure” in the short term but greatly diminishes our satisfaction levels in the mid/long term. This is mainly due to two reasons, a) dividends on account of dishonesty cannot be sustained in the mid/long run, as others will soon find out and apply countermeasures to undo the damages, b) gains acquired through dishonesty is addictive and therefore the experience of “pleasure” (emanating out of it) can only be sustained with enhanced levels of dishonesty, which is unsustainable.

Enhancing Physical/Mental Health

Money/Wealth acquired dishonestly is generally used in unconstructive activities or to show off — destroying physical/mental health. Hence, it is of little use in the long run. Also, wealth acquired dishonesty is locked into unproductive assets (mostly unused) and therefore is neither beneficial for the individual nor the society.

To sum it up, acting honestly does not guarantee success, wealth or physical pleasure, but it definitely increases the probability of a healthy and satisfying life. Hence, shouldn’t “acting honestly” be synonymous with “acting intelligently” and “acting dishonestly” be synonymous with “acting foolishly”?