‘I Was Finally Heard’
Speak facts and truth all you want, you can long be disbelieved
Speaking facts and truth is not always enough for people listening, watching or reading and that means bad news, really bad news for you. You’ve been hurt and are about to get harmed again, or you’re going to get initially damaged, by humans you thought you could trust. You’re getting assaulted again, not because of yourself but because of people’s broken brains and poor character.
This happens, if not daily in the world, then often. Yes, often. You just don’t see, hear or read about the frequency. If you could talk to the fellow humans who have been betrayed by mankind, they would tell you factual, vivid horror stories. You might even have your own to tell.
I will only focus today on a story I ran across in the news. It’s not an uncommon one.
A man wrongfully convicted spends twenty-eight years in prison. Now, a free man, yet not without deep trauma, pain and suffering from the get go all the way to being released from his hell from unethical, corrupt behavior.
Three of Lamar Johnson’s powerful quotes:
“I can’t say I knew it would happen (being exonerated and freed), but I would never give up fighting for what I knew to be the right thing…”
He was able to contact people “who were willing to come forward and tell the truth.”
“It felt like a weight had been lifted off me,” Johnson said. “I think that came out in how emotional I got afterward. I was finally heard.”
Mr. Johnson persisted. For nearly three decades. How many people could show such determination and endurance? Not many. The human mind usually succumbs and effort seems futile and therefore ends.
There were people who were willing to step forward, with compassion and a sense of moral duty, to tell the truth. Not everyone is gifted that same help. Good people can be hard to find.
A weight was lifted off him. Only the few know just how heavy the burden he wore.
Mr. Johnson was “finally heard.” He means listened to fully and not thought to be lying. He was never lying. Mr. Johnson was just assumed to be because that’s what people with authority and power will regularly do, disbelieve facts, truth, reality and wrongdoing of others.
They then commit wrongdoing themselves and I strongly contend, know it. Ego and telling false stories to themselves protects them from remorse and the motivation and commitment to correcting the harm.
The takeaway from this article, I hope, will be for all of us to take all steps, with real effort and humility to not quickly or eventually disbelieve people because of our initial and strong impressions, negative emotions, overconfidence and biases.
Ask yourself, “how do I know I’m right?” Test that with hard, difficult questions. Repeatedly. Reject confirmation bias.
This doesn’t mean to trust people who are lying.
It does mean to not assume and convict in our minds, at work, in relationships and in the law and courts, the people who really are communicating factually and truthfully, yet are getting unjustly, immorally railroaded.
Michael Toebe is the founder and specialist of Reputation Quality, helping people further build their reputation as a strength and responsibly, ethically protect, restore or reconstruct trust.