DAE get really really bothered by dishonesty?
I am admittedly no saint and will occasionally omit things or tell white lies to avoid more complicated situations. But this is coming up because I have a business and I am trying to find ways to do better with my business, so naturally I turn to YouTube University and try to find some good info. But I am just..shocked..not just by how dishonest people are but by how open they are about being dishonest. You have a dude openly joking about stealing other people's designs, a founder of a company admitting he paid his friends to buy merchandise so he would seem more successful, and when I finally find a woman, she claims to be making five figures a month but has no website and very few actual designs on her social media.
Integrity is really important to me, even when I do tell white lies, I get really uncomfortable about it for a few days afterwards, but that is also me on a personal level. As a "business owner" integrity is like non-negotiable. It almost feels like if I am a shady business owner, I will be struck by lightning or something. (Heh when I was a kid I legit thought I might get struck by lightning when I was in church because I did not believe in God but I had to pretend to for my mom.) Lately I have been having this sad feeling that because of my autism (burnout) and my ADHD (lack of focus and executive function) that I really do not have what it takes to run any kind of business, and that any ideas I have about it are just pipe dreams. The fact that I am so very different from the people in these videos, seemingly extroverted, confident, and (sadly) dishonest makes me wonder why I am even in this in the first place.
It is the same thing in my career. I have torpedoed my position on a few occasions for being "too honest" and being very upfront about my intentions with jobs and my actions when trying to control my career. I have never been very good at "playing the game," I never seem to know when to fudge the truth. I get resume help and then I erase all the suggestions because I am too afraid they make me sound more experienced than I am, like I hate putting things in corporate speak because I am worried it paints a false picture of me and what I have actually done. Which eh probably does not help my resume when it goes through the job screeners, heheh. Ugh. *rubs face* What a world.
Posted Aug 13, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC