Dear Ian,

You came home yesterday and told me that Caelan grabbed your shirt and pushed you from behind, resulting in you banging into 2 younger kids in school. You even go on to say that you have your friends as witnesses. I decided to let your mum talk to Caelan’s mum to clarify the matter.

What auntie Eliz (Caelan’s mum) told us was her son said you poked him with your water bottle, which he respond pushing you to the boys. Only then, you told me you were playing with him, using the bottle as a light saber.

What bothers us was that you didn’t tell us (you claimed that you did) that you did that to Caelan. You were quite adamant to tears that you did told me, and you did tell you mum, when she came home. Both of us never heard you said that. Never mind, given the benefit of the doubt, we will take it that you did, and we didn’t hear it.

The next matter is, I’ve already told you the cardinal rule, if you want to get into a fight, I’d better find out that you did not start it. And if you did, woe to you when you come home. Frankly what happened between you and Caelan wasn’t amounting to any ‘fight’ per se, but the point is you started it. Had you not poked Caelan with the bottle, he will not pushed you. You ‘whitewashed’ the ‘you started it’ part and made it look as if you were the victim and you were right.

The Right might not be True, and the Truth might not be Right.

We decided to punish you, for starting it the whole thing, as well as a lie you told me in the morning, which I decided not to pursue, but you mum did. Smacking you on your hand with a ruler as a punishment brought tears to your eyes. But I can tell the lesson hadn’t sunk in. You walked away feeling the pain on your hand but not learning the values and the responsibilities of telling what actually happened, instead of feeding us your story of you being right. It did not sink in.

The 7.5kg Truth Monkey

So I devised a sinister punishment. I have weights, I have chains. I took a 5kg weight, put it on chain and sling it around your neck. You have to carry that until you learn your lesson.

You didn’t and decided to sulk.

So I added a 1.25kg ‘sulking’ weight.

You struggled with it, obviously. And for the later part of the day, I changed the weight from a total of 6.25kg to 7.5kg, and put it on a longer chain. It is long enough for you to alternative between the shoulders, yet not long enough to rest your weights on the floor.

Tell the truth

This give you a physical burden of wanting to be right. To experience how difficult it can be, weighing the Truth and the Right.  We all yearn to be right, and sometimes, at the expense of telling the truth.  There is a difference between the Right and the Truth. The Right might not be True, and the Truth might not be right. This is the lesson I want you to learn carrying 7.5kg weight and chain. You want to be right or you want to be truthful. The burden is very real and for your case, no longer metaphorical, the weight on your shoulders is real, you have to think, critically, what you want to say, and what you want others to hear.

You came to me a few times, dragging that physical burden trying to explain it. You said your account of what happened might cause some strain between us and Caelan’s parents. To which I told you, ‘Don’t worry about that, we have a good level of trust between the parents. No damage.’

With that burden getting heavier by the minute, I could have just told you what we wanted you to tell us, but I want you to think on your feet, (literally as you are not allowed to sit down) what you did and how can we work our way around that. It is also a way of stress testing you, to make you think and work under a terribly uncomfortable situation to see if you break or not.

Truth will set you free

If you tell the truth, there is no fear of you being right, chances are you probably are. But if you are focused in telling what is right, for you, then you might miss the truth. You see, there are things you might not be sure of, your job is to investigate them, find out the truth. The truth can be relative, so your job is to twist it, turn it, look at it analyze it, upside, downside, inside out, outside in, 360 degrees, test the truth and no matter how you test it, if the conclusion is still the same, you probably have come closer to the truth than anyone else.

And if you tell the truth, people will fear you, respect you and follow you. Many people want to be right, but not many people can handle the truth. Not many people wants to tell the truth. They only want to tell their version of the truth, which is what they think is the Right. Chances are, the truth might proved that you are wrong. If you are relentless in pursuing the truth, you will not care if you’re wrong. You can be wrong about something, but at least you’re truthful about it and will naturally find the courage to act and correct your mistakes.

Chasing the truth will indeed set you free. You do not need to construct the story, and let your ego be in the centre of your drama. The Truth, and those who pursue it will be very courageous, humble without the need for limelight.

But if you are focused in telling what is right, for you, then you might miss the truth.

People will die for you

You have to understand the gravity (pun intended) of the matter on hand, DO NOT LIE TO US. DO NOT LIE TO YOURSELF, just so that you can be right. If the whole world accuses you of being a thief, when you stole so that someone can be saved; you are still wrong, but you knew the true reason for that, we will back you up and ignore all others who thought you were wrong. You need to face that stress, the burden of responsibility of telling nothing else but the truth. And as long as I can look into your eyes and you are telling the truth, we will back you up to the end of the world, against all odds, just as long as you are true to yourself.

There are people who love you unconditionally and will come to your aid, no matter what; they are your grandparents. They will do whatever it takes to protect both you and your little brother, and the last thing I want you to have on your life is that they are sacrificed just so for you to be right. I do not want that on your conscience.

Eventually, I want you to see that you have to feel and have that etched in your mind, have to courage to face the reality of things, find out the truth, tell the truth and indeed, the truth will set you free, otherwise, you will be burdened by the weight of always wanting to be right.