What causes us to lie? It’s not a question of whether or not one lies, unfortunately we all do. But why? When we do lie we are typically on tenterhooks until the truth comes out – and it seems to always come out at the worst possible moment. Most of the time we end up getting caught in the lie which only makes the situation worse – AND we all know this. So why do we lie?
Self preservation is often given as the reason for lying, and there are a number of ‘reasons’ we list under this heading – but since we always seem to get caught, that argument really doesn’t work. It seems doomed from the start, yet we do tend to continue to use this as an explanation. I have heard some people say that they didn’t want the other person to be hurt. That has got to be the weakest and least acceptable reason. What we really are saying is that ‘we’ didn’t want to have problems and a lie seemed to be the easiest way out.
Is lying a responsibility thing? A “What! Me do that – never!” The problem is that if it is a responsibility thing (something we said we would do or wouldn’t do and we did the opposite) then the quickest way out is to admit our error. A “sorry” really does cover a multitude of sins, especially when accompanied with a heartfelt, “I’ll never do (not do) it again.”
Lying causes pain to those we lied to and to ourselves – waiting to be caught and then the aftermath of being caught. There really doesn’t seem to be any rational reason to lie. For the life of me, I can’t explain it. An ‘everyone does it’ doesn’t make it right or proper and it definitely doesn’t work. It is a puzzlement that reasonable and intelligent people would do this…. but we do. The only weapon against this, in my opinion, is diligence. We must be diligently on guard to keep ourselves from lying.
Is it possible?????
