Dear Stoics,

There is a small war inside most of us, fought several times a day, between two things we believe in that seem to exclude each other: honesty and kindness. Do we tell a friend we hate their new haircut? Do we answer “How are you?” truthfully? Most of the time, what we call kindness wins by forfeit, and we tell ourselves it was for our loved one’s sake.

Almost a decade ago, in a quest to solve this dilemma, the researchers Emma Levine and Taya Cohen tried something refreshing and bold. They came up with a field experiment where they asked a group of people to be completely honest for three days. They had to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in every conversation, with every single person. Naturally, the volunteers dreaded the outcome, as they predicted awkwardness, ruined relationships, misery all round. But then, the opposite happened: being honest turned out to be far more pleasurable and more socially connecting than people expected. It did much less relational harm than they had feared. What’s even more surprising, the pattern repeated itself across further experiments, including ones where people had to deliver mostly negative feedback.

According to the research, we tend to overestimate the cost of truth, and then pay a different cost for all the things we never get to say. And the thing is, we can all handle the truth, whatever it might be. Does that settle it, then: total honesty for everyone, always? Well, not really, and here the research deserves a careful second reading. The same experiments also show that people value gentleness, and that honesty is welcomed most when it comes from care rather than from a desire to be right. The participants in those studies were instructed to be truthful, not brutal. “Radical honesty” as a licence to say every passing thought is by no means a virtuous project.

Perhaps the real distinction isn’t between honesty and kindness at all, but between using honesty as a gift or as a weapon. The same truth can be both; the difference is how and when we say it. A truth delivered at the right moment, with the right words, and for the other person’s benefit, is one of the most generous things we can offer. It just takes more carefulness than either lying or blurting out whatever we want to.

This week, we invite you to notice how you speak to the people in your life. Where do you tiptoe around the truth? When do you say things without thinking about what they’ll cost someone? Between those two approaches lies a different path worth taking: the truth told with kindness.

Yours truly,
The Stoic App Team

Somewhere in your life, there is a certain someone who did something for you that you never repaid, because you couldn’t, or because you only understood what it was years later. This week’s theme, On Debts, is all about that ledger: everything we owe to people, to hard experiences, and to plain luck.

Each day this week, we’ll look at it from a different angle. Who do you owe the most? How much was really just luck? What did a difficult period lend you that an easy one couldn’t have? Owing this much is the receipt for a life well lived. So, open your journal, and start with the name that first comes to your mind.