Truth

Quote
The third virtue we read about was truth. The quote I choose was about accepting your own truth even though it may be harder to accept. “We all have our own truth ,some easier to accept than others.” (Marshall III 120). This quote is universal because it applies to everyone, not just a group of people. It is a fact that people are living and we all have our own individual truth. Sometimes accepting the truth is a very hard thing to do, but once you do it that is when you are truly living your own authentic life.

Iktomi
In the story, there was a trickster named Iktomi. He was very skilled at tricking people. Once when he was hungry, he pretended to be bringing songs to a celebration and some ducks were asking what he was doing. The ducks wanted him to sing a song to them, Iktomi at first refused to make what he was doing more believable, but then agreed to sing to them if the ducks all closed their eyes while he was singing. They closed their eyes, and Iktomi killed many of the ducks while their fellow ducks had no idea because their eyes were closed. One of the ducks eventually figured out what he was doing so he warned the others and they flew off. Iktomi later feasted and ate as much as he could.

Lakota Culture
The truth is a very important virtue for multiple cultures. If you are truthful people will trust you for the most part. There are times where you should tell the truth and other moments where you shouldn’t. Like in the story “Seeing the Way Things Are” there is a woman with a terrible illness, she was still concerned with her children more than herself. She was very weak, her children would visit her and she would act fine, but once her children left she collapsed from the pain and died that night. Once the children had found out they questioned why she didn’t tell them the truth about her pain. Her oldest daughter said “The pain wasn’t the truth we should remember. The truth we should remember is the strength and the love had in order to set it aside for those few hours.” (Marshall 124). There could be more than one truth. It just depends on the truth you choose to see.

Virtue
I think telling the truth is one of the most important things because it can make things much easier. In the book, it talks about how the truth can make a situation much easier by showing how Iktomi got his meal. My cousin is a cop and he says if you are speeding and he asks you why you got pulled over and you say "I don't know" he is more likely to give you a ticket. Not telling the truth could hurt people, they would also second guess your honesty. Someone great once said: "A bad seed cannot bear good fruit." So if you start with a friendship over a lie, most likely that friendship will not last.