What is a secret?
A secret is something we choose not to tell someone or a few people and we want to keep it from being general knowledge. Perhaps we even lie to avoid telling the truth, and keep a secret from another. Quite often we keep secrets from the very people we love, family, friends, partner etc.
Why do we keep secrets?
What makes us keep a secret from someone we love or someone we work with? Sometimes we may feel scared to tell the other person the truth for fear of their reaction. Will they be angry with you or get upset?
People hold secrets for various reasons, sometimes someone might tell you a secret and tell you not to tell anyone else.
Maybe later they will let you know that they have told whoever they wanted to keep it from and its now not a secret. This could be good news, perhaps of an upcoming birth or engagement, new job and so on.
Other times it could be that someone has behaved inappropriately and doesn’t want anyone else to know. Maybe they just need to tell one person so they have someone to talk to about what they have done. However sometimes this can become quite repetitive in that the person who now has the info might do the same to another person and tell them not to tell anyone because it is a secret and so on and so on. This kind of gossip can become a bit of a Chinese whisper and the original news may have grown and be so far away from the original story.
It can be a true test of a friendship to see whether or not you keep a secret. Sometimes this could be made very difficult if you are friends with all parties concerned and you know that by keeping the secret you could be hurting or damaging another friendship by not telling them what you know. If the secret becomes common knowledge and your friend is made aware that you knew but didn’t tell them, they can become angry or upset with you.
How do I know someone will keep my secret?
If you want to tell someone a secret, be sure that you can trust him or her with it. Keeping a secret and respecting the secrets of others, as opposed to prying into them, is all about self-discipline. Those who lack understanding cannot guard a secret and those that do not care about the consequences of their words and actions cannot be considered discreet.
It is usually wise not to tell your private concerns to others, especially if they are unattractive, offensive or are going to make you or a loved one look bad. Those sorts of secrets can embarrass your family and friends and delight your enemies and of course have other unpleasant consequences as well.
If you find that someone is telling you other people’s secrets then you can guess that they are probably telling your secrets to others. Watch out for these people and make sure you don’t let secrets slip out to them!
Is it okay to have secrets?
That’s a hard question because everyone is different and every secret is different. The details of many important things can be protected only if they are kept secret. Here’s a couple of examples.
What about how much money you earn in your job? That’s probably a good secret to keep – if it became common knowledge among friends or workmates that you were earning more than them then it could cause people to think they were being paid unfairly or that you had heaps of money and should shout everyone lunch. That sort of thing is private and should not be common knowledge.
What if you fancied your best friends boyfriend? Yikes! We can’t help who we fancy but we can keep it under control. It’s probably not a good idea to tell your best friend. But also you should not act on it and not interfere in their relationship. You can fancy him but leave him alone.
What if you saw someone you knew torturing an animal? This is not a good secret to keep to yourself. An animal can’t help itself against someone like that and needs someone to stand up for it. You should tell the appropriate people like a teacher, parent or the police.
Some secrets are harder to define. What if you see your best friends boyfriend/girlfriend cheating on them? You have to decide whether to confront the cheater or to tell your best friend. Someone is going to get hurt either way and that is what you have to weigh up when you decide whether to tell the secret or not.
Secrets Leading to Lies
Secrets can lead to lies. When we don’t tell someone the truth we may create a lie to cover it up.
– Mum might ask why you were late home
– You might throw a surprise birthday party for someone
– You spent your lunch money on something you shouldn’t have
If you were late home and were doing something you shouldn’t have then if you’re asked why you were late you are probably going to lie. If you think you’ve got away with the lie then it now becomes a secret and one you’ll have to keep if you don’t want to get in trouble.
Lies can get out of control though so if you think your secret is going to grow and grow and your lies are going to get bigger and bigger then you might want to think whether the secret is worth keeping.
Secrets in The Tribe
Remember when Ned and Ebony conspired to release The Guardian from his cell in series 3? Ebony told Ned he could have all he wanted if he did it. He wanted to go back to the farm with Alice and get the place up to scratch again. Ned kept this secret from everyone. He would have to lie to cover his secret and in the end the tables turned on him and he became a victim of the Guardian.
In Series 4 Lex was selling Virtual Reality Paradise games to the kids in the city when the rest of The Tribe were trying to get them destroyed knowing they were harming everyone. Lex’s secret was a big one and a greedy one. He didn’t care that he was harming people he just wanted to make money from it. Eventually he got caught out too.
A huge secret during Series 5 was when Jay and Trudy were together. She was aware of the previous relationship he had had with Amber but Amber convinced her it was completely over. Jay and Amber were actually still attracted to each other and even though they knew they shouldn’t, they went behind Trudy’s back. Trudy caught them out and was devastated. Her best friend and her boyfriend had both kept their feelings a secret or not admitted them.
What about Lex’s secret that he was not a very good reader? Not the sort of secret that was going to hurt someone else but a personal secret that he didn’t really want everyone to know about. A secret that caused embarrassment to the secret keeper.
Whichever way we look at secrets we will all have secrets during our lifetime. Some are little secrets and some are big secrets and nearly all secrets have consequences…