How To: Be Transparent

GI Joe said it, many wise men believe it, and I repeat it. "Knowing is half the battle." In life we always want to be in the know. We constantly seek out a flow of information. From asking your partner "what are you thinking" to going online to CNN for news, we're constantly seeking out information as validation to our lives. We want to have visibility of as much as possible. When someone says "we need to talk" or something of the sort we immediately want to know what about. We're a knowledge driven species. We always want to know more.

A large part of knowledge is understanding. I could read every manual on quantum physics in dual universes but just because I've been exposed to it doesn't mean I know it. There has to be comprehension and understanding for knowledge to exist.

So what's my point, what does this have to deal with being transparent? Well, the point is for others to know you, to understand you, you have no other choice than to be transparent. Politicians are afraid to do it, lovers refuse, and friends usually choose not to. But being transparent is the easiest hard thing you'll ever do. You just become an open book without limits. You talk about everything, you expose yourself completely, and you allow others to know you... once you've done this, once you've become visible from all angles, transparent, then others will understand.

But how do you become transparent?


You open up. Whether you're trying to get your point across to a group of peers or trying to express your love to someone you just have to open up. Lay your thoughts, feelings, your everything on the table for them to see. You can't make judgements for them, you can't anticipate what others will think. The only way to be transparent is to bare it all and let everyone see what you're thinking and who you are. You'll find that others will respect you for being so open and able to communicate your intentions, emotions, and thought process. It's not the easiest thing to do, but once you begin the journey of transparency you'll never want to live any other way.

An added bonus to being so open is that you'll find that you won't have any skeletons in your closet. If you're truly open then others will know all of the dimensions of who you are, not just the good. No one can harm you when you talk about and admit your own faults, failures, and disappointments. And what's better is that once you are so open you won't want to have faults, failures, or disappointments and you'll shy away from these things because of the image you want to portray of yourself.

To get others to understand you... you have to be open, you have to communicate, and you have to be (in a sense) vulnerable. Transparency is a great life concept, try be a little more "see through" with your life and see how it works, I bet you're going to like how it feels.