I really hate the liars. I hate them more than the cheats. I am brutally honest. People ALWAYS know where they stand with me. With my inner circle, I am honest with them and I’m even more brutally honest with myself (self-deprecating? Why yes I am!). That is why when someone I love and trust, lies, it crushes my spirit. I don’t think people know how destructive lies are. Lies eat away at friendship and they dissolve the bonds that hold us together.
I think people lie for a variety of reasons:
- Pride leads to exaggeration.
- Fear of telling the truth.
- Manipulating someone to get what you want.
- Insecurity.
- Inherent weakness of character.
- You are a sociopath.
I think people tell the truth for a variety of reasons:
- It builds trust.
- It makes you strong.
- It eases guilt.
- It‘s at the epicenter of integrity.
- You’re fearless.
- It’s peaceful - you don’t have to track your lies.
Don’t get me wrong. People generally tell between 10 and 200 lies a day. We all tell white lies to make people feel better. We often lie by omission. We ‘reframe’ the truth to make it sound better. We gossip and embellish. These are the lies we tell to the people we interact with. These are the lies we tell to strangers. These are not the lies we tell ourselves. These are not the lies we tell those who trust us implicitly. When someone lies once, perhaps you can forgive them. When someone lies effortlessly without a hint of deception in their eyes, multiple times, they are experienced liars. Sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for is the one aiming the gun.
