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…
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