"It's because there's a catch-22 in this situation between empathy and honesty. " This is one of the exact things addressed in Crucial Conversations: (1) The

"It's because there's a catch-22 in this situation between empathy and honesty. " This is one of the exact things addressed in Crucial Conversations: (1) The authors recognize that a lot of people feel this way. That they are either brutally honest or they don't talk about it. (2) That people often feels this way because they don't know how to talk about difficult things. It does not have to be this way. The authors lay out the steps for being able to communicate difficult conversations with anyone. Is it still going to be unpleasant? Yes. But it does not involve an either-or choice of being "brutally honest" and being "empathetic". These are especially important in conversations these authors call "crucial conversations": important conversations that people have a lot of stake in its outcome, when opinions differ, and emotions run high. These are literally the underpinning of every relationship I know, be them romantic partnerships, to relationship with friends, with bosses, with people who work for you. The key thing to getting out of that seeming either-or trap, is to understand that you can talk to anyone about anything if they trust you. They trust you because you sincerely want something that includes them. That you are not out to get them or trap them into things. That perhaps, you both want the same things though you might not see it. That you both are sharing in some shared meaning together. It is a very practical book. It lays things out in ways that are catchy and easy to remember. It's the book I gave to a friend of mine for a wedding present after I have been married for three years, something I wished I had known about when I got married.