My ex and I shared a lot of things in common, but one of the biggest was our dislike of injustice. We didn't like it in real life and we didn't like it in fiction either. We wouldn't go see movies if we knew ahead of time that injustice was a part of the story line. We never watched the television show, "The Fugitive," nor did we see the movie either because we didn't like for good people and innocent people to be falsely accused.

 

I used the term "unfairness" in the title of this column, although I learned a long time ago that there's a multitude of things about our world that aren't fair. So I'm not na*ve about this. Tragedies, whether man-made or natural, aren't fair but there isn't much that can be done about them. The accident of birth isn't fair but there isn't anything that can be done about that either. Some people are born beautiful, some are born ugly; some are born into rich families, others into poor ones, some are born in America, some are born in the most impoverished countries in the world, some are born with birth defects, others are born perfectly healthy. The list goes on and on. These are injustices that no one can control and no one can do anything about.

 

Personal injustices are different, however. We all can do so much better at reducing the number of personal injustices that happen every day of our lives if we just would. How many of us have passed on a juicy piece of gossip that we had no factual proof of? How many of us have presumed to know someone's motive for the things they do, when we really don't understand their motivation at all? How many of us misunderstand a person's behavior or words and never take the time or make the effort to clear up the misunderstanding? These are things you and I can correct if we will and the world will be a better place to live in if we do.

 

There are people who presume to know a lot more about my life and the choices I make than they actually do know and I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences. Judging a person on second and third-hand information is one of the most unfair acts a human being can participate in and yet many of us do it every single day.

 

People sometimes criticize my columns and that's absolutely fair if the criticism is directed at what I say rather than who they think I am. I recently exchanged a series of emails with a regular critic whose criticisms had become more and more personal in their attacks. He didn't agree with me at first but after going back and reading some of the letters to the editor he had written, he agreed that his recent criticisms had, in fact, become more personal, even though that was not his intention. He apologized for that and his apology was deeply appreciated by me. It takes a much bigger person to admit they are wrong than it does to insist that they're right.

 

I've always tried diligently to accept people as they are, rather than imposing my own parochial interpretation on them. Because of that, I've been fortunate enough to have friends from all walks of life, from all income levels, and from all skin colors and ethnicities because I try to understand people from the inside out rather than the outside in. Since I'm human and fallible, I'm sure I don't always succeed but that's always my mission and always my goal.

 

I'm not sure any of us are ever completely transparent in our dealings with others. All of us seem to have "secrets" we don't want anyone else to know about; things that we keep hidden deep within the recesses of our heart and soul. I've never been sure why we do that. Obviously, it's a learned response. If we're doing things others might judge negatively and their impressions of us are important to us, then they will never see who we really are. Sometimes we do it in an attempt to protect ourselves because we've been told that we should never tell anyone everything because it might be used against us some day. I suppose that's true but I've often wondered about what the biggest risk is. Is hiding our true selves and our attendant imperfections really in our long-term best interests or is this just another flawed and imperfect coping mechanism we've developed?

 

In the intimate, loving relationships I've had with others, I've always believed that secrets are always bad and will always cause more damage in the long-run than the truth, even if it's a truth we're not too proud of. Secrets tend to foster more secrets and, before long, we're withholding more than we're disclosing and we eventually become strangers to each other in the process. The love of my life once asked me if I expected to know everything about what she thought and what she did and I told her I did because I never wanted any "surprises" dropped on me over things she had not disclosed to me and that I intended to be just as honest and open with her about my life. This is the only thing that makes sense to me. This is how two people become one. This is how we walk together through life, joined at the hip, ready to take on the world because we know each other better than anyone else does.

 

If we aren't able to do that, the secrets will eventually outnumber the truths and our relationship will be doomed because withholding our true self from the one we love is the greatest injustice of all.