Is it good? Is it bad?
Truth is, everyone lies and the quicker you understand this, the easier it will be to function in a healthy relationship.
The thing to keep in mind is that when someone lies, it often has nothing to do with you. Instead, try only to look at it as that person’s way of trying to gain the personal benefit from the situation.
Here’s another truth: The reason we get mad when people lie, is not because we were mislead or betrayed. It’s not even because we were hurt. It’s because we get pissed that we let it go on for so long.
What do you say when you find out that someone has lied to you? "Damn, I knew it all along!"
We feel taken advantage of and exploited, we also come to the cold hard truth that we went along with it and let them do it...THAT’s where the true hurt lies. Pun intended.
So, what is lying exactly? Well, it’s an attempt to mislead someone using deliberate false information. It's the human survival mechanism. Lying acts as a lubricant to ease social discomfort and create initial connections with people. Think- when someone asks you how you’re doing and you immediately respond- “Fine” or “I'm good!”
Lying is a condition of life. Many claim to want to know the truth, but the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is often impossible to find out, and when it is, it is usually never desired. Lies make life easier to manage. It helps us accept the things we have trouble facing.
Everybody lies and cheats. Yup. Even you. Whenever I say this, I'm always hit with a few "I don't lie", "Why would anyone have to lie to me?" die hards. Sorry, that in and of itself is a lie and an attempt to deliver a falsehood. Make no mistake about what you are reading, I know you are a liar, just like you know I am. We all know. We know when people lie and we know when people tell the truth.
That's how you know, that I know, you know I ain't lying about this! *emoji side eye*
And guess what? Lying is ok. You are not morally bankrupt or spiritually bereft because of it. Just like anything else, it's how you use it that matters.
Let me ask you this:
1- Have you ever kept extra change from a cashier?
2- Do you take pens home from the doctor’s office or work?
3- Do you round up billable hours at work or edit your time clock entries to the nearest hour when you’re late?
4- How about when your employer pays you for 8 hours/day, but you know you came in late and took a few longer than usual lunch breaks?
4- Do you round down estimates where you owe more money? What about when you tip your server?
5- Ever told a friend you love their hairstyle or outfit when it was only …meh?
6- How about waking up Monday morning, going to work and smiling or laughing with coworkers when you really didn’t want to be there?
7- Do we even need to talk about taxes?????
All of the above are lies and cheats, which all benefited you in some way. People lie when it benefits them to do so almost always. Some people lie every time when it benefits them a lot, others will still lie even when it benefits them only a little. There are only a handful of people that will lie all the time, no matter what. These are the sociopaths. Buddha, Ghandi and Mother Teresa, were all duplicitous in some way. Let that marinate...
Before you think you have Jesus levels of humanity, probability is high you’re just a regular ol' liar, just like the rest of us.
The dilemma we all face with accepting lying is reconciling it with our human need to appear and be seen as morally good.
Somehow, along the passage of time, and more than likely religion, what has long since been used as a tool of survival(lying), has been deemed “bad", "evil", "corrupt".
Lying isn’t bad- but it has caused and can cause great strife, poverty, and even war. Lying becomes lethal when it is done selfishly.
Humans are programmed to want to be good people and we owe that to our “ego motivation.” We want to believe that we are so good, we will even lie to and about others to make them worse than who WE THINK we are. And when given the choice to cheat, even just a little bit, at least 90% of us will do it.
We go through this mental process of trying to rationalize it. We tell ourselves things like:
“Oh, no one will miss this…” or
“No one was using this…” or
“They have plenty of these…” and “No one will find out…” or perhaps one of the most dangerous:
“I need this more than they do…”
It shouldn’t be hard to accept, when it’s possible to benefit from lying and cheating especially without it causing any damage to our self/public image, most of us will do it. Despite this, there are only a specific type of people that will lie or cheat to make big gains, and he or she usually does so for financial motivation, think- Martha Stewart and Donald Trump.
Lying is complex. The lesson here is to realize that not all liars or lies are bad, and instead of getting upset at someone for doing something that you likely do everyday, strive instead, to uncover the reasons for it. Lying IS a survival tool, and the sooner we accept it as such, the faster we can start to grow from its revelations in our personal lives.
Up next…
So now that lying is ok, when is it ok to tell the truth?