The honest friend stings now and saves you later. The flattering one feels great until it doesn’t.

Honesty costs something at the moment it is given and saves you later. A friend who tells you the uncomfortable thing is spending their own comfort to do it, and the sting is the price of information you would not otherwise have had. Flattery costs nothing and gives you nothing, and it feels wonderful right up until the moment you find out in public what everybody else already knew.

Think about who tells you the truth. Thank one of them this week, specifically, and ask them what they have been too polite to mention.