Truth and Lie
One fine evening, my son asked me why people lie?", which led me to think about this act of lying. I even posted it on my WhatsApp status and received exciting replies.
“Because we are insecure.”
“Because we want to deceive the feelings.”
“Because we want a favour.”
“Because we want to feel relevant.”
Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” If we all were truthful, we would not need to worry or be on guard from the piercing eyes of others.
And despite understanding the power of truth, “why do people lie?”. People are icebergs and we only see the tip of that iceberg.
I recall an exciting story of “truth and lie” whose moral still carries a profound impact on my persona-
One day, a man named Truth and a man named Lie stood by a river just outside town. They were twin brothers. Lie challenged Truth to a race, claiming he could swim across the river faster than Truth.
Lie laid out the rules to the challenge, stating that they both must remove all their clothes and, at the count of 3, dive into the cold water and swim to the other side and back. Lie counted to 3, but when Truth jumped in, Lie did not.
As Truth swam across the river, Lie put on Truth’s clothes and walked back to town dressed as Truth. He proudly paraded around town pretending to be Truth. Truth returned to shore, but his clothes were gone, and he was left naked with only Lie’s clothes.
Refusing to dress himself as Lie, Truth walked back to town naked. People stared and glared as naked Truth walked through town. He tried to explain what happened and that he was, in fact, Truth, but because he was naked and uncomfortable to look at, people mocked and shunned him, refusing to believe he was Truth. The people in town believed Lie because he was dressed appropriately and more accessible.
From that day until now, people have come to believe a lie rather than a naked truth.
And what a sad truth it is because in our times or since time innumerable, posing and lying is just the normalised way of living and communicating among us. We all say lie but underreport it and far less accept it.
As said by Morgan Housel- “The window-dressed version of ourselves is by far the most common.” (we might as well be lying to ourselves!!). In my understanding, being truthful to oneself is a precious gift that we all can give to ourselves by appreciating that there is a difference between Personal Values and Social Conditioning.
My mind says we must accept that a lie has no power until someone accepts it and makes it powerful. It is hard but not unreal to make decisions based on intuition rather than fear, saying ‘no’ when you mean no and ‘yes’ when you mean yes, living life by commitment and values and sourcing a sense of positive power and affirmative self-worth from within.
Lie laid out the rules to the challenge, stating that they both must remove all their clothes and, at the count of 3, dive into the cold water and swim to the other side and back. Lie counted to 3, but when Truth jumped in, Lie did not.
As Truth swam across the river, Lie put on Truth’s clothes and walked back to town dressed as Truth. He proudly paraded around town pretending to be Truth. Truth returned to shore, but his clothes were gone, and he was left naked with only Lie’s clothes.
Refusing to dress himself as Lie, Truth walked back to town naked. People stared and glared as naked Truth walked through town. He tried to explain what happened and that he was, in fact, Truth, but because he was naked and uncomfortable to look at, people mocked and shunned him, refusing to believe he was Truth. The people in town believed Lie because he was dressed appropriately and more accessible.
From that day until now, people have come to believe a lie rather than a naked truth.
And what a sad truth it is because in our times or since time innumerable, posing and lying is just the normalised way of living and communicating among us. We all say lie but underreport it and far less accept it.
As said by Morgan Housel- “The window-dressed version of ourselves is by far the most common.” (we might as well be lying to ourselves!!). In my understanding, being truthful to oneself is a precious gift that we all can give to ourselves by appreciating that there is a difference between Personal Values and Social Conditioning.
My mind says we must accept that a lie has no power until someone accepts it and makes it powerful. It is hard but not unreal to make decisions based on intuition rather than fear, saying ‘no’ when you mean no and ‘yes’ when you mean yes, living life by commitment and values and sourcing a sense of positive power and affirmative self-worth from within.
However, the Debate is ON... Looking forward to your point of view.
"The art of living is knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that we can still recognise lies without knowing what truth may be."- unknown
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