What if Everyone Was Honest?

Ever stop to think about how different our lives would be if everyone was honest?

I used to contemplate this when I lived in Italy. To be more precise, I lived in Monza, a fairly posh suburb of Milan. My apartment was on the edge of a massive park that surrounded the palace of a former king. It was an upscale neighborhood with not much evidence of crime or violence. Which is why the security protocol for "going home" always struck me as excessive and got me started thinking about how "dishonesty" impacts our lives.

For perspective, to get into my very own apartment, I needed an electronic key to open a gate at the roadside so that I could advance to the guard shack where a human security officer required me to show identification. Every time. Day after day, week after week... for four years. 

Then I could pull forward into our underground structure to my locked garage. Of course, I needed another key to enter the lobby of my apartment building, a code to activate the elevator, and 3 separate keys for the 3 separate locks on my door. I remember joking to my friends that the greatest criminal masterminds in the world couldn't steal my TV. (Of course, my apartment was ransacked during an overnight ski trip about a month after I moved in, but that's the topic for a whole other blog post).

My point is that remembering, planning, and adhering to all of the "honesty protocols" required to go home each night, summed up to a lot of effort over time. Add that to the protocols for starting and securing my own vehicle, getting into my office, starting my computer, opening my email, boarding a flight, crossing a border, cashing a check or taking money from an ATM (all things I did daily, weekly, or at least monthly in those days), and you realize that we all spend enormous amounts of time and effort to protect ourselves against dishonesty.

But imagine a world where no one took what did not belong to them, and no one accessed information that they didn't have the right to access, and no one misrepresented their identity. No one would need a key for their car, or their house, or any other protected asset. In fact, keys never would have been invented. Nor would have locks. Not even invented!

Ditto for passwords. And for copyright laws. And tamper proof packaging (man, I hate tamper proof packaging!). Scalpers would only sell real tickets, dating site photos would be un-retouched, and that used car you bought would really have passed a 31-point inspection.

What would we all do with so much free time and so little stress? To where would we re-channel all the energy we currently divert to protection against dishonesty? How much more open to policies of public assistance would we all be if we trusted the beneficiaries and knew that none were scamming the system and stealing our tax dollars? 

On the one hand, I understand how getting cheated or robbed can lead to reduced trust and increased vigilance against being wronged. On the other hand, I would like to believe that witnessing conspicuous honesty and integrity might reverse the trend. I am not so naive as to believe that trust can be built as quickly as it can be broken, but I think we would all love to live in a more honest world, and I am exactly naive enough to believe that building one is a goal worth striving for. 

Honesty breeds trust and fuels community. Deception and dishonesty spark defensiveness and self-protection. Let's not overlook all the honesty out there... even if it is not ubiquitously covered in the news, we need to notice it, appreciate it, and let it fill the general coffers of trust.