Liar, Liar

  • by Trish Berg
  • July 3, 2013
  • 431
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. It’s good to tell the truth. We want to be honest with each other, right? That’s the foundation of our relationships, the starting point of trust. But sometimes the people we love most lie to us. Like the time I came downstairs in a new pair of jeans only to ask my husband “Honey, do these make me look fat?” Or the time my daughter asked me what was wrong, and I said, “Nothing.” We lie because it is easier than telling the truth, and some lies make the truth look better. But like dressing a grizzly bear in a prom dress, sometimes the lie has claws that come out and they can scratch us. I have often thought about the origin of lying. I know that I never sat my children down and taught them how to lie, and yet, even as toddlers, they knew how to lie. Not well, mind you, but yet they lied. There was the time I went to make chocolate chip cookies and could not find the chocolate chips. I knew I had just bought a bag, but they were nowhere to be found. I asked the kids and each one of them said “Not me!” Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Colin (then five years old) scurry upstairs. He returned with his head hanging low and a half eaten bag of chocolate chips in his hot little hands. “Colin, where were they?” I asked. “Under my pillow,” he said. He had taken them, hidden them under his pillow so that he could eat them at his whim. More recently, on our vacation, we had two ice cream bars left in the freezer, and suddenly they were gone. When we asked the kids who ate them, we got the same answer as always, “Not me.” Now, we knew someone (or a pair of someone’s) ate them, and yet no one would be honest. I don’t want to blame the kids, because we all lie from time to time, from little white lies to great big fibs. We lie because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We lie to keep the family peace. We lie to look good and we lie to make someone else look bad. We lie because we don’t want to get in trouble. We lie because we want to hide something. Most of all, we lie because it is the easiest way to get what we want. Oh the tangled web we weave…and all. So where do we draw the line? It’s good to tell the truth. Honesty is a good thing, the foundation of most of our relationships, the basis of trust. Speaking the truth is a good habit to get into, and it starts with the little things. We teach our children to tell the truth by telling the truth ourselves and by teaching them how to gain our trust by speaking the truth to us. No it isn’t always easy, but it is important. And as it has been said, the truth shall set you free. No matter how beautiful the lie may seem to be, it is still a grizzly bear in a prom dress. So today, I am putting on my skinny jeans and hoping for the best. Just tell me they look good, and I’ll believe you. After all, it’s the truth, right?


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load