An old friend I used to work with had a pet saying that resonated with me and has stuck with me ever since. “I hate liars,” he said. And that was it. It resonated with me because I had always thought the same thing, or so I thought.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that there had been times when I had been less than economical with the truth. There were times, admittedly decades ago, when I had gone sick from work when I wasn’t sick. I had made excuses to be absent from events which strictly speaking weren’t true. I should instead have been honest in my aversion to some kinds of events, like parties, reunions and pretty well anything where there could be a large gathering. If I try hard enough, I can find more examples, all of which make me cringe.
One thing that is true is that lying is very hard. in order to lie, you need to think harder. You always have to remember the context of a lie and then get it right every time. It puts pressure on the brain. You need to have a poker face. Happily, I don’t trust myself to get a lie right every time and I definitely don’t have a poker face. If I get something wrong, or do something I shouldn’t have done, I don’t have to think about covering it up. I just blurt out the truth, no matter how embarrassing or potentially incriminating that might be. And then accept whatever will be, will be.
Telling the truth is not always beneficial, but it’s definitely the right thing to do. I would hate to have the attitude of, say, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, both of whom lie as a matter of course, to the extent that I suspect neither can tell the difference between what’s true and what isn’t. Indeed, both of these dreadful men have come to the view that the bigger the lie, the better. If you can get away with an apparently innocent white lie, then why not come up with a filthy great lie instead? People always say they hate lying politicians until an election comes along and they vote for them.
Sometimes, people manage to get through an entire life without being found out. More often, they don’t. A lie can appear to be truthful to others, but sometimes it is far-fetched and beyond belief. The liar might not realise they have been rumbled, but the rest of us know, don’t we?
Liars always know they are liars. They have to live with that. And when they lie, they should really think about how the rest of us regard them because I know and have indeed worked with a good few of them. Happy ever after? Yeah, but always a liar.
