Happy Winds-day!

To borrow from that pantless Pooh, it is definitely a blustery day out there! My little weather icon told me yesterday that you Northerners had actual wind warnings, so you got yours a little early.

(Yes, I keep the temperature for both Winnipeg and Minneapolis on my computer. Just so I can shout "go! go! go!" whenever they're neck in neck and then gloat when our temperature tops yours. Of course, I also hang my head in dismay on days like yesterday when you get to a glorious 16 degrees and we're stuck in the lower teens.)

It feels a bit as though the blog is going to be changing a bit as time passes. When we were in the thick of moving, there was something major to report every day. Each day had earth-shaking headlines:

"PASSPORTS OBTAINED: ONE WOMAN'S RED TAPE BATTLE"

"GIRL SHELVES TEDDY, GAINS BFF"

"MOVING VAN ARRIVES TO TEARS OF JOY"

Now that things are settling down (see previous post on predictable routine - aka "a rut"), it feels as though we are moving off of the sensational front page and towards Section B. Or perhaps even Section C, given that this morning's post started with the weather. With that in mind, today's post will be an op-ed piece.

Someone asked me the other day to choose: truth or comfort.

I paused for the briefest of seconds. Was this a trick question? The answer was so obvious - why would anyone choose anything but?

Truth, I answered.

Since then, I've been thinking of why that would be my knee-jerk reaction. I'll definitely be the first to say that I've got an active (some might accuse me of "overactive") sense of integrity. I'm the girl who contacted service reps when I'd printed their booklets wrong, even if the mistake would likely have gone unnoticed. I'm the girl who returned to Superstore after realizing I'd forgotten to put my butter on the conveyor belt to be scanned in order to model "truthiness" to my daughter. Even if she was only 8 months old at the time. I'm the girl who left a note on the car whose hood may or may not have been dinged by my son's over-zealous door-opening practices, even though I wasn't sure if the damage was our fault.

Now all of these things cost me fairly little in the grand scheme of things. But when the two are mutually exclusive - when truth comes at the cost of comfort - I'll still choose truth. Back when we were struggling maritally, it would have been far easier to avoid knowing the truth in order to save what seemed to be a comfortable life. But I chose truth then and would choose it now too - no comfort is worth it when built on a lie.

Don't get me wrong; I'm still prone to choosing comfort now and again, particularly when I can convince myself the truth is not at issue. But unless I'm able to perform some fairly nimble mental gymnastics and truly believe that I'm not compromising my integrity, I'll frame the issue in a "truth or comfort" dichotomy and will agonize until I choose truth.

(This makes me an absolute nightmare for students who think that plagiarizing is no big deal. I take it quite personally and the barest whiff of sloppy citing of secondary sources turns me into one of those drug dogs who will not rest until the smuggler of others' ideas is found, wrestled to the ground, and appropriately brought to justice.)

It gets me to wondering. Is it just me? (Probably not.) Are there people who would knowingly choose comfort over truth? (Probably.) Are there compelling reasons for doing so? (Hmmm...)

So, what would you choose - truth or comfort?