Wonderful Words for Wednesday
The Wonderful Words for this Wednesday are: “Be Sincere“
I consider myself a very sincere person and It’s a trait I value greatly in others.
Here’s what Webster’s has to say about the word ‘sincere’:
- free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness; earnest.
- genuine; real
- pure; unmixed; unadulterated
Synonyms:
Trustworthy
Forthright
Unpretentious
Up-front
Wholehearted
YES! Those things are who I am and traits I look for in friends for certain. Wait, not so fast…
Story Time
Here’s a funny story that stopped me in my tracks and made me realize how quickly I become insincere:
Last Sunday after church, I was standing with a good friend and we were chatting. I was telling her how I had a headache and didn’t feel very well and that I was super tired. As we were chatting, another friend passed by and I said, “Hi! How are you?”, She said the usual response of “Good, and you?”, and right off my tongue slipped the word, “Excellent!”, with gusto even.
I turned back to my friend whom I was speaking with about my headache and realized I was caught in an absolute lie right there in church of all places! I hadn’t even thought about it!
Now I know that we can’t just share our woes to anyone passing by saying hi and asking how we are, but the contrast of my conversation with friend ‘a’ and how I responded to friend ‘b’ caught me off guard and brought me up short. The response to friend ‘b’ was WAY less than sincere. I wanted to be feeling ‘Excellent!’, but I was far from that.
We all had a good laugh as I came clean to friend ‘b’ and told the truth with sincerity.
The point is, wow, how quickly we lie, even when we pride ourselves as being a very ‘sincere’ person.
The Moral of the Story
The moral of the story is to stop and think before responding in those situations. We don’t have to go into our troubles to any random person asking how we are, but we can sure make a better approximation in our responses than ‘Excellent!’ when we’re actually closer to just ‘okay’.
How about you? Listen to your responses today and check in on your sincerity, you might be surprised like I was!
Meanwhile, I had a lot of fun lettering the words “Be Sincere” and then painting them with my new handmade watercolors from ‘The Cliffs of Watertown’ through Etsy. I canNOT get enough of playing with these glittery watercolors! Also, I really enjoy creating the ‘flatlays’ from my work such as the photo you see above. I guess it’s dad’s photography rubbing off a bit!
Try YOUR hand at making a ‘Be Sincere‘ sign for yourself if you feel inclined. I’d LOVE to see what you come up with! Play art & Spread some Joy.
Alright friends! GO FORTH, Be as sincere as you can (within reason of course! Don’t inundate the Cable guy or gal with all of your woes!) in all circumstances ;-).
Kim Snider, Virtuoso, signing off.
P.S. Friend ‘a’ and friend ‘b’ – you know who you are! lol