On Lying

I figure there are two primary reasons for lying, the first is to keep something about ourselves hidden. This lie can be consciously or unconsciously told since it is possible to be so out of touch with ourselves that we don‘t even recognize the lie. The second lie is told to deliberately mislead, which always makes it an intentional lie, either at the personal level or organizational level.



A work of art...

I knew someone in our circle who was so good at lying that his lies became a work of art, and unless you were caught in the crosshairs of one, you would never know you were being lied to, so good was his technique. He was quick, articulate, could out talk anyone around and toss off a story at the drop of a hat. It took me two or three disasters before I knew I’d been “had” by him. (In those days I was not too quick on the uptake about such things since I liked to believe what people told me. Unfortunately I’m a little more cynical now.) Anyway, now savvy, I felt a certain amount of devastation. I could not and never did trust him again, and for the rest of our years of activity together, I could never believe anything he said, not even the simplest, and I'm not sure who the biggest loser was. I never did know whether he was a deliberate liar or just so used to his inventions that he was by then oblivious to them. The thing is, eventually we all knew…we all knew.

Fibs, casual lies, and whoppers...

There are, in my opinion, basically three kinds of lies: fibs, casual lies and whoppers. They all cause damage…in the world of trustworthiness, at least…but there is a difference in degree. Sometimes we’ll fib to a child…all the while teaching him or her not to fib…to put off something we might not want to do at the moment and maybe make up for it later. Casual lies do their jobs in helping us hide what we do not want revealed. Whoppers, now, always told to mislead, will create serious damage, either immediately or down the road. In fact, if you tell a whopper to a kid and are discovered quickly, he or she will never trust you again. If the lie is discovered later, its overtones will already have been eroding an unsustainable performance.

Is it worth it?

I think that If we live long enough we will discover that nothing stays hidden forever; secrets, however subtly, make their ways into the light, and the loss of others’ trust becomes a terrible price to pay for a deceptive life. We have to ask: Is it worth it?

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