Lies, Lies and More Lies

Telling lies is a fantasy that all man has been engaged in for centuries. He didn’t know he was telling lies, but he was. You have known many men who have told lies I’m sure. You know that that is true. Have you noticed that the man you met just a few moments ago told you a lie? Oh yes, he did. You didn’t know it at the time I’m sure. Perhaps you should think about it. Maybe you will learn what the lie was.

Oh yes, lies are told everyday by many-many people just not men. You know of at least a dozen right now, don’t you! Oh, do you tell lies? I think you do. You told your girlfriend or boyfriend a lie not more than – oh – a minute ago. It was actually easy. Just think about it. You tell lies almost fifty times a day and you don’t even know it. How can I say that? Well you see we are only human and telling lies is something we do without thinking about it. We just do it. I know this is true because – who wants to tell someone they are a jerk and ugly or they make the biggest mistakes of anyone you know. Mistakes in their work, their way of seeing things, the way they eat… If we told them the truth we would not have any friends at all. We all want people to tell us that we are a good person and we are smart and a joy to be around. Don’t you agree?

I was watching the TV program “House”. House M.D. always tells his doctors that “everybody lies”. They lie about their medical problems. They lie about taking, narcotics, or alcohol, the type of work they do, or even their family history with certain kinds of medical problems that are really embarrassing. Who wants to reveal that they have several members of their family with mental problems? How many people want their doctors to know that they were hospitalized for over dosing? You see, everybody lies.

It all started when we were very young. In fact, when we were just babies we would hear our mother tell our father lies about what she did during the day. We would hear our brothers or sisters tell our mother and father lies about their day at school and the fact that they were sent to the Principal’s office for being un-kind to their teacher or another student – to put it mildly.

We often tell lies just to keep ourselves out of trouble. Lies are a defense mechanism. We even tell lies to our bosses at work and fellow workers. We tell them what it’s ok for them to know, but not the really “good stuff” that we hold as personal. We lie to the officer who pulled us over for running a stop sign. We tell the officer that we didn’t see the sign and didn’t know it was there. The officer knows that everybody lies and so gives us a ticket and tells us to be more observant next time. We tell him/her ok we will when we have no intention of doing anything other than what we have been doing for months – running that stop sign; after all, no one stops at that sign, so we believe.

Oh me – lies. Lies are part of life and even though we all do it and know that our friends do it, we just don’t stop it. We use it, as I wrote earlier, as a defense mechanism to keep us out of trouble – so we believe. We also know that our lying is often known to the person we are talking to, but they say nothing because they know that the lie will come back to “bite us on the back side”.

Lies are not something that ministers are supposed to be engaged in, but they also tell lies. When at a funeral, the minister tells the people gathered there that the deceased was a really good guy and contributed a great deal to the community and society. Everybody there knows that the guy was a crime boss who had people killed or had their legs broken in order teach someone that they could not deny him anything.

Lies, we all make them and we believe we have good reasons for doing so. However, it is always better to tell the truth when our life depends on it, or not to lie to a close friend or love one. We may do it just because we do, lying day in and day out just because we, secretly, believe we must.

Is there a time when a lie is ok? Some say yes. But when is it ok to lie? The other day I heard a mother tell her little child that he could not go to the park because a very bad man was there. The child didn’t believe his mother, but what could he do. Suppose you were very sick and the doctor told you would be getting better in a couple of days when he/she knew that you were dying. “Don’t worry, everything is ok and you’ll be up and around in not time”. Suppose you lied in order to stop a person from hitting you or damaging something you loved? Is it ok to lie then?

You see, we all have our reasons for lying and it is not always good for us. We must be very careful when we lie. We must fully understand the consequences of the lie. Did it get us out of trouble? Did it keep us or someone else safe from harm? Did it prevent that child from getting into trouble? Kind of makes you wonder…

A Time For Everything

Today is the day that was made just for me. I got up this morning feeling really good and ready for anything that comes my way, so I thought.

When we get up in the mornings, we often believe that this will be a good day filled with love, good friends and a job well done. We all expect everything to not only go well but to be a day where we are able to do all we desired to do and more. This is a reasonable desire because we have been getting up each morning with the same expectations since we were very young. It may not have been in our mind, but it was there in the back ground – it is a good day. So, with all that being said, we need to believe that everyday will be a good day. There are too many days when things didn’t go as we expected.

How many people believe that they are OK and everything they do is perfect? One, two or maybe three…is that a reasonable? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. We are always looking for more, especially from our husband, wives, our children and friends. We expect more from our fellow employees and being able to get to work on time and do a good job. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people even believe that the world owes them a living. The world owes them good health and a good life in general. The world owes them everything that comes into their minds and more. The question in why should they believe all that? Isn’t it reasonable to believe that the world owes no one anything? We get out of this life what we put into it. If we put nothing into it, then we’ll get nothing out of it, except maybe a headache.

As some of you may know, I am talking about the Law of Attraction. This law is one of the more important laws because it says, “likes attract like. If we attract love, we get love in return. If we attract good in our day, we receive good in our day. If we expect to do a good job at work, we will do good work. You get the idea, I’m sure.

Another law that is similar to the Law of Attraction is the Law of Cause and Effect. This law is another of those laws that are important for us to understand. These laws tell us that we do get out of this life what we put into it. I could now repeat what I have already said above, but there is no need for that. We all understand what is expected of us each day and each waking moment.

Let us take a look at what a man wrote many thousands of years ago. He wrote, there is a time for everything. Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up [that which is] planted; 3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance, etc.. The writer goes on to describe more things that there is a time for, but it is not necessary for us to reiterate them here. We do understand that for every cause there is an effect as the Old Testament writer says.

Can we expect each day to wake up feeling good and have high expectations for the day? Yes, and it is our right to believe and expect it to be so.

Confusion

Webster’s dictionary says that confusion is “A mistake that results from taking one thing to be another”. This often holds true for all of us at times. We don’t always hear what is actually being said or we’re thinking of something else rather than listening to what is being said at the time.

I know that this happens more often than it should. Our minds often take us “on a journey” while we are at a lecture or a meeting where the subject just doesn’t pertain directly to us at the moment. We can be asked a question or someone can speak our name and it takes a moment or two for us to come back to reality. We are then confused as to what had been said to us and normally ask for the person to repeat their question or comment. This is especially true when a person’s native language is not the one in which they involved in at the present moment. These people are often translating the words of one language into their native language and miss what is being said in the next moment. They miss what the other person has just said to them or to the group their part of. I find this to be true here in Montreal where I live. French is the native language for the majority of people. When I make a joke, they often laugh but really didn’t understand the joke as they are inclined to ask another person who speaks French to explain the joke to them.

I was at a meeting the other day and this happened, unknown to me at the time. I said something to a person and they took it all wrong as if to say “you are one of those I’m talking about”. If the subject was really for them, then they should have said what? Repeat that. Or talk to me after the meeting to have me explain why I said what I did. However, that didn’t happen and it’s been several days since and the circumstance and the situation is lost to me. I talked to a person who was at the meeting and they said that I did say something to that other person that I should not have. I am sorry that it happened and I sure don’t want it to happen again. I apologized to the person but whether they accepted it or not is up to them.

One of the articles I wrote for my book was titled “Clarity Needed” in which I spelled out some things that happened to me, and a professor I had at university. We all need to be understood and to understand each other. We also need to understand that we are only human and we make mistakes. Mistakes that can make things difficult for us and even destroy a friendship.

When we talk to people we know and try to make jokes, we should be sure that they understand that we are just joking. If not… So what can we do? Should we be someone were not? Should we be “walking on egg shells” when we are around other people, where we are so careful that we are not ourselves? This is something that we will all have to come to terms with and even when we do, we will have to remember that when we are with a certain person that we must be extremely careful. After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone, verbally or otherwise.

I am still experiencing a bit of confusion as too what actually happened and I’m very sorry that the problem exists. Maybe this was a learning situation for me that I really need. I WILL be more careful in the future.