How Can I Be More Honest – Truthful Lies We Tell To Ourself

We tell lies everyday. We tell ourselves it’s for a good reason and we have done it so often now that it has become socially acceptable.

It’s not just verbal lies that we tell. We also lie with actions, more commonly known as deceit. We also lie by omission. Many of us now use another social lying tool that is double-speak.

The key to being more honest is to start with lies and eliminate them from your normal life. Stop lying to yourself, to others, be true in your actions and promises, and take responsibility for your actions where you need to.

Let’s look at the types of lies and then what we can do to eliminate them.

Verbal lies: These are the most common of the lies. They can range from being infinitesimally tiny or monumentally huge. We as a society have generally accepted the fact the small, or white lies, can be safely ignored for the most part. But we have not standard as to what constitutes a small lie of if it is for socially beneficial reasons or just for malicious purposes.

Social lies may take the form of complimenting someones food when you think it’s terrible, telling someone they look great when they look like they have been dragged through a hedge backwards.

As we become more regressive as a society (people call themselves progressives but they are pulling us backwards in reality) the more lies are required to make everything and everyone feel more included.

Overweight people must be told how amazing they look even if they are morbidly obese. Being worried about their health and mentioning it is not taboo. Forcing us to lie by omission.

Actions of deceit: These can take the form of theft, infidelity or other similarly malicious acts. Deception is where you try to convince another that something is different to what is actually is. Think of misrepresenting yourself as a Manager of a shop but in actuality you are just an assistant.

Some of the goods we buy may be counterfeit. Where the seller has bought illegal items with the intent of passing them off as ganuine.

Other actions of deceit usually combine verbal lies. They can be things like reheating a meal in a cafe and then telling you it’s fresh. (FYI fresh baked goods in supermarkets are made with dough that is often many months old and deep-frozen before use)

Acts of omission:

Not revealing an important or pertinent piece of information can be an act of omission. Selling a computer that you know crashes for no reason and not telling the buyer is a good example. Meeting a woman and she does not tell you she is married is another.

Doublespeak:

The act of doublespeak has been around for many years and was brought to light way back in the 1970’s. Doublespeak is used as a means of deceit, to hide or obfuscate the truth.

Modern society has embraced this at many levels often to give jobs with a perceived lower status some elevation. Jobs like “garbage collector” becomes “recycling management technician”. “Dinner ladies” become “nutrition allocation consultants”

Don’t lie to yourself

This is where you begin. By being honest to yourself. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. Be honest about the person that you are.

Many overweight people wear voluminous clothes to try and hide the fact they are not healthy and interested in looking after their bodies. There is even a social movement to promote acceptance of obesity and inherent health risks.

Many people tell themselves lies for many reasons. They don’t go out to work as they tell themselves they are no good at anything so cannot get a good job.

They may buy many material things to make themselves feel better about an issue they are avoiding.

If you do have any mental or physical issue in your life, pretending they don’t exist of they are acceptable is just lying to yourself. Be honest with yourself and get the help you need.

Be you – Impress nobody with lies

Lying to others can be more destructive than lying to yourself. There is a culture built around the acceptance of telling lies and deceiving people. They call it “fake it ’till you make it”. We have all heard it but is it the best policy?

Why not instead of trying to deceive someone into doing something of buying something for example, why not tell them you are new to whatever you are doing, really excited and enthusiastic about the whole thing and you really appreciate their help?

I personally would much rather deal with someone who is honest as when push comes to shove you will be much less likely to be cheated as a result.

Confession is good for the soul

Nobody likes lying really but it’s quite common for people to compound lies with yet more lies. Being open with people not only makes you a better person but it makes other people see you as someone who can be trusted and respected.

If something goes wrong the own up to it right away. even if the situation is bad then you can still walk away with the respect they have for you intact.

Blaming others and making excuses just makes you look weak and will make others more inclined to throw you under the bus when the time comes.

Taking responsibility is not only the manly thing to do it also reinforces the values of truth and honesty not only to those around you but more importantly to yourself.

Develop habits that reinforce the truth.

Do what you say and say what you do. By being true to your word you will find that lies are not needed. If you say you will be somewhere at a certain time then be there. If you say you will do something then do it.

By developing these habits you will build responsibility and integrity and you will get a reputation of being a man of your word. People will respect you for this and in the workplace you will often be rewarded for this behavior.

Some of the habits you may need to employ are to remove yourself from people who are more likely to challenge these beliefs and values you now have. They may ask you to do or say something that can put you into a situation where your honesty will be unwelcome and for you to lie will go against your values.

In all honesty removing yourself from the lies and having smaller social circles is my personal recommendation. The idea that you need to be brought down so everyone is equal rather than lift everyone up is not acceptable.

In conclusion:

When it comes down to it, big lies and small lies seem to be part of life for many people. Small lies, or white lies as we call them are acceptable or so we tell ourselves. It’s these lies that can lead to other bigger lies that lead to bigger lies and so on.

You can think of this as a positive reinforcement loop. It’s not actually always positive in the definition of god vs bad. But more increasing vs decreasing.

By socially accepting small lies we are now seeing bigger lies as small lies as the small lies are not seen as lies any more.