Some hurtful truth is better than a well intended lie any day

“Liar, liar pants on fire!” I remember screaming those words as a child on the playground, feeling so very betrayed when some boy decided to no longer be my “husband” as we played house.
Everyone tells lies and nobody likes them.
Still it is an everyday occurrence to lie to the ones we love and even to those we hate.
Why do we deceive you might ask? Well, we all have our reasons.
Yet most times a lie, for me anyways, is easier to say than the truth.
The problem is most people do not realize how often they do lie and how many different ways they deceive others.
Now some say that there are two types of lies: the ones you get away with and the ones you get caught in, but in reality there are just a few more.
The first is the casual white lie, all have told these. This type of lie is really quite rude. We assume that the truth would harm another.
Taking an arrogant position on the subject and presuming that we know what is best for someone else.
Similar to when I know a friend is having a bad day and I turn and tell them “hey you look really cute today,” when in reality they are looking such a hot mess they should not have braved the light of day at all.
Now I have taken the situation into my own hands and created a white lie to boost their confidence, but the last thing that friend needs at this point in time is false confidence.
White lies are unfair and impolite. They give people counterfeited beliefs that in the future may cause them embarrassment.
Facade is the next one.  Now I know you’re thinking how is this a lie? Well when you put up a front, you create an illusion and persuade others into believing that delusion.
There are two types of facades: the mental and the physical.
A psychological front is like hiding certain aspects of yourself and character that you know they would never accept you for, while a physical pretense is more along the lines of how you dress and present yourself to the world.
We all have masks that we wear for protection, hiding certain parts that we would never show others and that’s just fine. Yet these can be dangerous when we use these defenses against others in order to deceive them.
The next two are slightly similar: deflection and omission.
Deflection and omission deal equally hiding information while appearing to have admitted the whole story.
However in deflection you are admitting parts of the story while reflecting your own guilt upon another person. It is sort of like setting up a façade and hiding behind it.
In omission you simply leave out certain parts of the story. Either way these are just as bad as straight up lying.
The worst type of lying exists somewhere between stereotypes and delusion. Stereotypes are generally not thought of as a lie, but they are often fueled by fabrications due to ignorance, omission and exaggeration.
They close people’s minds to the truth, cause them to believe what society says rather than search out the reality of a situation.
Thus making cliché labels is just as bad if not worse than lies.
Delusions on the other hand are a self-inflicted type of lie.
They are similar to facades in the way that we use them as a survival mechanism.
Delusions are the mind’s way of keeping our world separate from the painful reality we would rather not recognize.
Most of the time people rarely know of the existence of the lies they tell themselves, using various methods to filter out the information of a truth they do not want to face.
No matter how you shape it stereotypes and delusions are the most dangerous kind of fabrications.
They cause us to force false realities onto others and ourselves in the most shameless manner.
Lies are dangerous no matter how you spin one they give people false hope, something no one needs.
As a personal goal for next week I am determined to stay as honest as physically possible.
I cannot lie to anyone, not even myself.
I am determined to make every word that comes out of my mouth truthful even if it means hurting someone or telling something I’d rather not.
People may think it is stupid, but my question to them is could you do it?
Considering all the different ways we lie to one another, do you think you could handle one tiny truth cause ready or not here it is: “honesty is the best policy” even if it hurts a little.

Comments, questions and concerns can be sent to olivia.jasmine.brayan@live.mercer.edu.