What if the pain you’re avoiding is the very thing that could set you free? We take a hard look at a Stoic claim—“the truth never harmed anyone; what harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance”—and test it against real life. From medical diagnoses and failed business bets to the slow leak of unspoken resentment in relationships, we explore why the sting of truth is acute but corrective, while the comfort of denial quietly compounds into long-term damage.