What happens when we hide things or deny what is going on in our work or our in lives?  During your work day or throughout your career have you ever used deceit to get by?  Lying on a resume or about the amount of work you have completed or the number of calls you have made?  It happens.  I have lost "almost placements" because they were caught in a lie.  I have lost respect for co-workers because they took the easy way that led them nowhere.  And I have devalued myself when I fudged numbers or didn't present the whole truth.

It used to be really hard for me to say, "I don't know."  But as I have aged and, hopefully, gained a bit of wisdom - I have also gained the ability to face what I don't know with an open mind - a mind that wants to learn, a mind that recognizes that it is ok to not know everything, and a mind that sees opportunity for growth with every unfamiliar idea or tech that crosses my path.

We usually pay for lack of knowledge and the price goes up considerably when we cover that lack up with deception or illusion - smoke and mirrors.  The loss of a deal, a client ends a contract, a candidate avoids calls, or even the loss of employment and/or respect. 

When my middle daughter was six years old, she came to me very afraid because ants seemed to have infested her room. They were everywhere around her bed and we sprayed & cleaned and cleaned & sprayed.  She denied having had food in her room and we washed her sheets several times.  We found the point of entry - a crack around the window by her bed - and we sealed it off.  But to no avail, the ants came back the very next day.

With further investigation, another trail and point of entry was discovered.  With the closest window sealed off, they had found the window on the other side of the room and made a long convoluted, winding trail to the bookcase by her bed.  I tore the bookcase apart and then pulled it away from the wall.  What I found there has become a legend in our home.  Dozens and dozens and dozens of Oreo cookie ends had been stuffed in the narrow space between the wall and the bookcase.  She had been sneaking cookies, eating the cream out of the middle and stashing the cookie ends in the wall.  And she had sincerely forgotten that she had been doing that for weeks. 

Her sneaking activity, the deceit, the hoarding, the breaking of rules all led to a horrifying run-in with a never-ending trail of ants.  A lesson had been learned and we started over.  She learned and we learned that it's never too late to do the right thing.  Really, it isn't.  Btw, how do you eat an Oreo cookie?

by rayannethorn