How Honest Are We With Ourselves?
✍🏻 By Ali Abbas Kazmi
October 22, 2025
Every day we look into the mirror, fix our hair, and put on a smile — but rarely do we pause to wonder what lies behind that shining reflection. Our society is like a mirror in which everyone wants to see the version of themselves they prefer. We raise slogans for reform, preach truth and morality, yet when it comes to our own actions, we all, at some level, wear the mask of hypocrisy. The truth is, we shout at others’ flaws but remain silent about our own. We are a nation that lectures on honesty but calls even the smallest act of deceit “cleverness” when it benefits us.
Today’s society is a collection of two faces — one we show the world and one we hide within. We offer prayers, yet lying causes us no discomfort. We become pious for a month during Ramadan but forget humanity for the remaining eleven months. We preach morality to others but invent endless excuses when it comes to applying it to ourselves. We post lectures about justice, tolerance, and sincerity on social media, but in real life we remain slaves to selfishness, jealousy, and ego. This contradiction has become the root of our downfall; truth rests on our tongues, but falsehood flows through our behavior.
Our social values may still exist in our narratives, but they have vanished from our character. We claim to teach others moral conduct but instruct our children to seek power instead of becoming examples of virtue. We admire principled people — as long as their principles do not harm our interests. We grow emotional in the name of religion yet remain distant from its true spirit — justice, love, and truth. We curse corruption but refuse to get anything done without bribery. We condemn lies yet mock the truth-teller as “naïve” or “foolish.”
In today’s society, speaking the truth has become a crime. An honest person is either crushed by the system or isolated by society. We have silenced our conscience so many times that it now seeks permission before speaking. We have confined truth to books and turned falsehood into a daily necessity. This decay is not merely economic or political — it is moral, eating away at the foundations of our being. Our educational institutions no longer produce thinkers but slaves to grades. Our religious gatherings awaken not the soul but division. Our media weighs truth on the scale of ratings, and our courts distribute justice according to “time” and “connections.”
Every emotion in our society has turned into a performance. Honor has become display, knowledge has become arrogance, faith a tool of superiority, and love a mere ritual. We wear masks of virtue, yet our hearts overflow with envy, greed, and suspicion. We are a nation that takes pride in the power of the oppressor and stays silent at the truth of the oppressed. We change principles, friends, even interpretations of faith — all to suit our convenience.
This contradiction is not just individual; it’s a crisis of our collective consciousness. We have learned to speak the truth but forgotten how to believe it. We raise the slogan of reform but never begin with ourselves. True change in society always begins from within — yet we keep waiting for others to change. We demand honest governance but evade taxes ourselves. We want a just society but resort to favoritism when our turn comes. We talk about “changing the system” yet refuse to change our own mindset.
The first step toward reform is truth — and the first demand of truth is that a person must be honest with themselves. We must find the courage to face our real reflection. We must admit that within us lie the seeds of deceit, hypocrisy, and selfishness. This decline is not the failure of governments or systems — it is the silent death of our collective conscience. Society mocked those who spoke the truth, called the righteous mad, and celebrated the liars. Today, truth is seen as weakness, and lies as the path to success.
We must gather the courage to confront our own gaze. If we truly wish for our society to change, we must look at the four fingers pointing back at us before raising one at others. We must remember: a society never collapses overnight — it slowly suffocates under the weight of lies. And when truth-tellers become few, oppression finds its voice. Truth is bitter, yes — but it is the only medicine that keeps the conscience alive. Nations do not live by power; they live by truth.
And so the question remains: How honest are we with ourselves? |