When is the truth really the truth? When is it being compromised?

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Should we always tell the truth, or is there room for adjusting it at times? Here is one such example where a second-hand bookshop owner slightly adjusted the telling of the truth, so it would more favour him, and not go against him here. In John's second-hand bookshop, he had found a near full carton of cigarettes in the back room of his shop, one night. John's shop had several small rooms connected together by corridors, like a house. John spent most of his time down the front, in the front room, where his counter and cash-register where located. So, John was thinking that one of the customers must have left it behind, and then he remembered smelling some smoke one day, a day or so ago. At the time, John had thought that it was coming from outside, as the front door of his shop was open, but now he thought to himself that this customer must have been smoking there too, in John's shop. John knew it now, and he inwardly seethed. John hated anyone to thwart the rules, and to smoke in his shop. So, still, feeling a bit angry, John tossed the whole carton of cigarettes in to a street bin, just up the road from his shop, a bit. The next day, this same customer came into John's shop again, and he asked John did he happen to find a carton of cigarettes in his shop, as he had lost it, and he had thought to himself that maybe he had left it in John's shop, while he was perusing the books there, the other day. John kept his cool, and he said to him, "Well there are three possibilities here, maybe the cleaner found it, maybe another customer took it, or maybe you didn't leave it here, but actually somewhere else." John didn't let on that he employed no such cleaner, in fact, he always cleaned the shop himself. That was how he had come across the cigarettes, while cleaning the floors up in the back room, which also used to collect lolly papers, and other food wrappings too, from other thoughtless patrons of his shop "Nevertheless, John went on, "Go up the back and have a look, another possibility is that it is still there now." Now the question is: Was John being strictly ethical/truthful in keeping to himself the truth that he had tossed this man's cigarettes into a bin outside of his shop, out of annoyance, and his need to punish the guy's little misdemeanour a bit too? Here's another example: Father Thomson was against the trend towards celebrating Halloween by the kids dressing up into witches and wizard costumes. He said that for this all saints day celebration the kids should dress up as a saint instead. (All Saints Day is held on the same day as which Halloween is held) Father Thomson held a special mass in his church then, and he asked the parents to bring their kids to mass for a special celebration of this day, and he told the kids to dress up in costume as a saint. Now, this is a very big church, and 87 kids did this in his parish. The mass lasted for about the usual lasting time of one hour, but after the mass, the good pastor called up all the kids one by one, to the front of the church, as the nuns here had prepared a specially wrapped gift for each child, with their name on it. The Priest allowed each child to speak for a minute or two, telling the congregation which saint they were, and why they had picked this particular one, to dress up as, and then the priest himself said a few trite, yet pertinent words about that particular saint too. An hour went by, and Father Thomson was not even half-way through the name call list as yet. People were getting restless in their seats, some had already left the church, and gone home. Dave and his wife were seated up near the front of the church, and so they didn't want to disappoint the kids, who would see them leaving, nor the priest, who was running this event, for the first time this year. So they sat there getting pins and needles in their backsides and legs for another hour, but this was then too much. There was still another full basket of gifts still to be given out, and so they then left the church too. Did they do the right thing, or not? Should they have punished ourselves for the benefit of others, or should they have shown the priest by their actions that he had miscalculated this event, and that he had carried it out, not in the best of all possible ways? For, after all, he could have got the four nuns in the church to take a basket each, and to call the kids out, as well, at the same time as he was doing this, which would have quartered the time involved. Should we let someone know truthfully so, or by other means, if they are making some type of a mistake then? Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com John's bookshop had lots of nooks and crannies in it. People could lose themselves in there for hours. Some abused this privilege, eating, smoking, and generally free-loading in there.