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[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi,

My question is... How do you vindicate yourself after saying nothing but the truth but lack evidence to back it up?

Hi, Ajiferuke Ajibola,

Thank you for your question.

An extremely important part of my teachings and system is fully and unconditionally accepting what you cannot control and cannot change.

You do have some influence about some of what some people think about you. You do have some tiny control over some aspects of your reputation. However, most of what people think about you and most things involving your reputation are out of your control.

No matter what you do, many people will think false things about you. In fact, presumably everyone who thinks about you at all will think some things about you that are false.

If you set as a goal the impossible ridiculous goal of making it so nobody at all thinks anything false about you, then you aren't following my teachings nor my system because then you are refusing to accept unchangeable aspects of reality that are out of your control and wasting your very limited time and energy worrying about why you can't control and trying to change what you know you cannot change.

It would depend on countless specifics in any given specific situation, but roughly 99 times out of 100, if you are in a situation where you have been completely 100% honest and still someone else thinking a false bad thing about you, my advice would be to just happily accept it. Let them think false things. Don't worry about it. Don't 'try' to change; never 'try' to change what you know you cannot change or to control what you know you cannot control. Or, in other words, in short, never try. Trying is lying. While you may be 100% honest with them, you would be lying to yourself if you take false responsibility for what is out of your control.

No matter what you do, many people will think false bad things about. That goes for all of us, including me: No matter what I do, many people will think false bad things about me. In that way, people thinking false bad things about is like the weather. No matter what you do, sometimes it will rain. Lovingly accept it. Let it be. If it's out of your control, it's not your responsibility. It would be dishonest to yourself to 'try' to take responsibility for it.

With all that said, you probably also want to take a deep, long, close look in the mirror. Ask yourself, am I really being 100% honest with this other person? Why do I look guilty of the thing of which I am not guilty?

Often, we can get so caught up in defensively claiming "it's not what it looks like", that we forget to honestly ask ourselves, "why does it look that way? Why does it look like I am guilty of that thing I am not guilty of? What am I guilty of that is being mistaken as this other thing?"

In your question you say that you use the very interesting phrase "after saying nothing but the truth". That is a very interesting way to phrase it. It feels like you might be dancing around something, in that you don't seem to be able to say you are being completely honest, open, and transparent with no even slightly dirty secrets.

Indeed, you may have not flat-out lied about something, but that doesn't mean you are being fully open and giving all the truth.

In analogy, imagine a masked robber just robbed a bank and is running away. The police are looking for this person. You aren't that person, but you happen to be wearing a mask and when you see the police you start running away, so they chase you thinking you are the bank robber and catch you. Then you get real mad that they would falsely accuse you of robbing the bank. You say, "I didn't rob the bank," which is the truth. You have said nothing but the truth, and yet they think you are guilty of robbing the bank. In this case, you are still responsible, at least in large part, for their false belief because you have not owned up to what you are guilty of. And playing the victim and getting angry at the police for thinking you are the robber is dishonest in general even if it doesn't involve saying something untrue with words.

In another analogy, it's common for one spouse to falsely accuse another of having a sexual affair (i.e. having sex with someone else). However, in that situation, it's usually dishonestly disingenuous and an act of not taking self-responsibility for the accused to merely defensively (and perhaps angrily) say the simple truth, "I didn't have sex with that person. I didn't have sex with anyone else." In fact, the more defensive rather than apologetic the person is, and the more they see themselves as or portray themselves as the victim, the more likely they are guilty of something more severe versus the degree to which they are understanding and apologetic and voluntarily own up to what they are guilty of that made them falsely look guilty of the other thing. In contrast to the one who plays the victim and responds ultra-defensively with denials that are technically true, consider the spouse who responds, "I didn't have sex with that person or anyone else, but I can see why it looks that way. I was flirting with them and having what could be described as emotional affair. They were my work husband (or work wife) and we never took it to the physical level, but I understand you may feel I crossed a line and that it would make it look like I was doing something even worse than what I did do."

In neither case the person has flat-out lied, but one person is being much more honest and taking much more self-responsibility. Perhaps it's ironic, but in any case it's the second person who will earn more trust than the truth-telling defensive person. Defensiveness does not earn trust. Extreme self-responsibility and openness does.

If you find yourself being falsely accused (e.g. police just chased you down while you were running away wearing a mask and accuse you of having robbed a bank you didn't rob), my advice is: (1) don't get defensive or angry, (2) don't focus on the fact that you are innocent of what they are accusing of, (3) don't focus on the fact that it "isn't what it looks like", and (4) figure out what you have done that the person wouldn't like or that is most "bad" in that context, proactively come clean about that with extreme self-responsibility, and give as many details as you can so that there is likely to be no doubt in the other person's mind that you have fully come clean and aren't hiding anything no matter how embarrassing or 'bad' or such. By being that open and trustworthy, you will be most likely to earn their trust.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes

[Sushan]

This is very true. Some truths are revealed late, and some are never revealed. But what matters in the end is living a principled and moral life, not living a life accepted by society. We cannot always prove ourselves, and it is not necessary either. Silence is often the best response to certain issues.