One of my favorite lines is from the author Jim Goad who said something to the effect that "If everyone, right now, decided to tell the truth, we'd all be dead by morning."
Now that's a good one. Basically most of us go through the whole day skipping around the way we really feel and what we really want to say. Fortunately, I had some brutally honest coaches growing up who werent afraid to hurt my feelings. M high school coach was a wothless jerk , but he would tell you when he really thought you werent any good.
I remember one summer when I was in high school when I decided that I didnt need to run as much as everyone else because I was strong and would just tough it out when practiced started. My father asked me why I wasnt running and when I told him my reasoning , he chuckled and said, "Son, you dont have a dedicated bone in your body." Thats all it took, and I was off and running.
You see it all the time in the gym. Your friend squats high but you dont have the heart to tell him so you he gets to the meet and bombs out and blames everyone but YOU . Its your fault for not being blunt with him in the first place.
In coaching also, I have experienced both ends of the spectrum. My boss at Gardner-Webb, Scott Parker, was a great coach and brutally honest. If you got beat, he pointed it out to you and everyone else and told us all who wasn't pulling their weight to help us win. And if you didnt strive to improve, he benched you and told you why he was doing it. Consequently when I coached at Charleston Southern, we kept kids on the field because(yes, its true)they were good kids or tried real hard or because they attended church regularly. Yup.
Anyway, I do it too,all the time.Everyone I know holds back the way they really feel and then they get into little corners and tell their friends all about it . And in this world were the truth hurts feelings or can even get you divorced or fired, I really don't have a solution. I do know however, that once in awhile, the truth feels damn good.
