The importance of honesty today Everyone is familiar with the old wise adage «honesty is the best policy» which was instilled into us in the early childhood but unfortunately growing up, not everyone continues living according to this principle. People prefer to hide the truth or bend it in order to avoid possible nasty consequences of such straightforwardness or in order not to hurt others. The question is: how honest should we be to each other and to ourselves? To begin with, many people believe that telling the truth in a forthright manner can be rather hurtful, but what escapes from their understanding is that the truth will be revealed sooner or later, and it is pointless to make a situation even worse. When people opt for lying, they have to memorize their own lies and they take the risk of entangling themselves in their net. Our lies eventually backfire on us. As well as this, when lying, people get bad conscience and a feeling of being guilty. Moreover, at times people are tempted to lie to themselves. They delude themselves into believing certain things about their own personality and life. Needless to say that in the majority of cases people who live a lie end up suffering from mental disorders and even nervous breakdowns. To my mind, the price is too high. To conclude, honesty is paramount for fruitful and healthy relationships with ourselves and with others. It is better to tell the truth however unpalatable it may be because it saves the bother of memorizing countless lies (which in the majority of cases accumulate due to the snowball effect) and besides, honest people do not feel guilty and have good conscience.