You physically can't speak the truth?

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.

And if you you're not sure of the truth, at least don't deliberately lie.

When to ignore and when to embrace change

Today is not deciding tomorrow, today is for grieving.
Today is not for grieving, today is deciding tomorrow.

Do you really know what you know?

Always test your assumptions if you stand to gain or lose a lot by being wrong.
Phelps

Should you ask for anything and everything?

Everyone is allowed to ask for things. And when you do, wonderful things tend to happen.
Phelps

Is 'truth' the full truth?

We're not looking for truth, we're looking to believe our own thoughts.
Phelps

Why do I sometimes handle things really badly?

We default to handling old problems in old ways.

Phelps

The power of the question

The question is the most powerful thing a person has; you are dictating what a person thinks about!

State of mind is the relationship

You can arrive in a relationship before it starts and leave a relationship before it ends.

Even though you're right, you're still wrong.

"Even though your idea is better, I like my idea better because I understand it."

Want to win every argument? The catch is it's not necessarily on your terms.

The only true way to change someone's mind is with a truth (to them)
bigger then the truth being contested.

Two Lies Make A Truth

You sometimes have to lie to a really anxious person to calm them down, because anxiety lies to them about reality.

How Do You Know When To Trust?

How do you determine trust? How do you know when someone is trustworthy; worth giving time to; investing in; sharing with? What is the silent measure and how is it gained and lost? What are the thresholds between caution and carelessness, protection and paranoia?

Short answer...  We don't, none of us do, but to not trust on even basic levels would mean the end of your life, I trust that the house I am in does not collapse, that the food I eat is not poison, that the car coming the other way doesn't crash into me...  So why do I trust those obvious things but not little things...  Well conditioning mainly but at the heart of it trust is two things coming together...  Patterns and accountability. I trust my house, my food and my fellow drivers won't kill me because it hasn't happened yet out of a large amount of experience and even if something dose happen it's so rare that it could be considered an anomaly (but for some even one time is enough to break the trust, depending on a variety of factors for a different topic). The second reason of accountability is the most reliable method of trust...  There's an expression "follow the money" which sums this up perfectly. Why does my food not poison me? Because the people providing it to me stand to lose more than me,  why does the car divers don't try to kill me? Their lives are more important than mine. Why does my house not collapse over my head? The people involved stand to lose to much if they don't do it correctly and same with all the people's jobs to keep these people accountable, they can lose their jobs and income, their ways of life.
So after seeing some patterns and following the thread of accountability also known as "what's in it for them" by lying to you they stand to gain no benefit, then your fine. If I had not such a complicated answer I'd probably be a lot richer or be a secret government agency spy...

If you want to catch a liar don't try the body language crap and eye position stuff,  it's too floored and means multiple things (like looking up is the brain activating visual information which yes could be creating a story in order to tell you back, but much more likely it's recalling things you've already seen)

If you really think someone is lying to you,  get them to tell their story in reverse order, if they made it up on the spot, it's hard to work in reverse linear, but not too hard if it's legit. It's a CIA trick.
Happy liar hunting y'all! 

Armchair Critics

It's easy to give criticism, much harder to give solutions that actually work.

Sometimes The Lie Is Prettier

It's hard to replace a simple concept with a difficult or abstract one, even if they are right and the simple concept is wrong

The truth and the perception

Just because I spelt a word wrong,  doesn't mean I don't know how to spell it,  and just because I spelt it right doesn't mean I know how to spell it.

The Truth About The Lie

If we can't understand the truth,  but can understand a lie, and because we punish someone more because we don't understand and reward them more when we do understand - is it no wonder we lie? And if the truth comes out,  it becomes a double punishment,  not understanding in the first place and not understanding why they lied to cover up what they don't understand - mind overloaded!

ITS ALL YOUR FAULT... that's a lie.

When I worked at Lifeline, I noticed two distinct kinds of people...  The sort that blamed everyone and everything for their problems and the other type who blamed themselves for everything and everyone else's problems.
What an awful way to live,  to genuinly believe that it's all your fault all the time... Everyone else's failures are yours,  every problem exists because there's something wrong with you...
It's a strange paradox...  To believe you are the cause and effect of everything is to say,  you matter that much, almost god like in your influence on the world...  Yet these types of people by deed and motive are the most humble and generous people on the planet.
These people think about everyone else before themselves to the point that when really important things happen,  they can collapse under pressure because they just have nothing left to give...
We all need to take care of ourselves,  take responsibility for ourselves, not others, keep ourselves strong so we can choose to help others in times of need! Be good to yourself,  be kind...  Be OK with helping yourself.

Dawning of a World Wide Era?

The right conclusions for the wrong reasons.  Maybe it's taken time to change our thinking behavior but for some "if you know the question, you can get the answer" rings true...  It does for me anyway.  I'm realising how little we really know...  The facts...  We do so many things and don't really know why,  we give so much advice,  but where did we get it? We had the industrial revolution,  we are in the IT age...  Maybe the sun will rise on the era of fact?  Where opinion is not as valued as hard evidence...  This sounds like hard work...  To prove everything you say and believe,  but i find myself questioning any 'fact' that i picked up along the way but didn't have a reliable source...  What what is reliable?  Trust?  And what is trust?  The repetition of being right and/or reliable.  Chicken or the egg.
The other problem is truth and fact changes with new truths and facts. We aren't as smart as we think us humans...  Every generation thinks they are at the height of humanity and that somehow we've figured out most things worth knowing...  That's my opinion,  not fact.  Maybe the era of fact is still a long way off.

Where the title is longer than the question

What is truth?

Fighting unfair

Is the accusations of sexism,  racism,  homophobia ways to win arguments?

Just un-intelligent arguments to justify or enforce someone's way of life and shunning others points of difference and preferences.

Sometimes we can't articulate what we mean in an argument,  so we try to get the! 'right result' by finding other ways of winning. Just because you can't articulate as well as the other guy,  doesn't mean you're less right, but it also doesn't give you the right to find alternative hurtful points that have nothing to do with the argument you're trying to win for the sake of winning.

Fight fair.