Lies: a necessary evil?
Apparently, when you lie to others there are no great consequences for them or yourself.
They will continue on with their lives as if nothing ever happened, somewhat unaffected by your lies.
On the other hand, you can also move on and disregard the lie as a necessary evil, a utility of human dynamics which, you think to yourself, everyone knows we all do.
In other words, to lie is a common practice among all of us, and to think otherwise is just pure naiveté.
“Why not use this practical tool we all have at our disposal?”, you wonder somewhat amazed that someone would even question this fact.
Interestingly, those who have mastered the apparent benefits of lying to others have become so proficient at it that they also engage in the questionable habit of lying to themselves, hoping to reap the same benefits they gain from deceiving others.
But I wonder what practical benefits one would attain from lying to oneself, or attempting to do so.
Again, I get why people lie to others.
There are “benefits” like avoiding awkward conversations, making others feel good, avoiding some responsibilities, fitting in within the group, and so on.
But to lie to oneself, I find that… counterproductive, at the bare minimum not as beneficial as lying to others.
The threat
After all, when all of them say their good-byes and leave, how do you feel about those lies when you are alone with yourself?
Don’t they hunt you at night, like someone watching you from the corner of the bed while you sleep?
Think about it, you might be able to avoid other people, and hide from them, but you might find it quite impossible to escape from yourself.
You have to live with yourself regardless of how much you like or dislike this person, this you.
Wouldn’t it be better, therefore, to have a peaceful relationship with yourself? To stop fighting yourself?
For instance, you keep telling yourself you’re alright.
But are you really doing alright? What about the other night that you decided to drink as if there were no tomorrow to numb the sadness that was tearing you apart from the inside?
You keep reciting this half-baked plan for your future that sounds very impressive and full of potential.
Are you seriously intending to follow through with that plan, or is it another cover-up so you avoid that familiar sensation of feeling incompetent and lost in life?
You swear you don’t think of them anymore; that it’s something of the past and that you hope they are doing just fine.
Then why do you keep looking them up every night on social media?
You smiled and told that friend that everything is going well at work, that you can’t complain.
Are you going to acknowledge the deep-seated feeling of being stuck and miserable at your job but that you don’t know how to get out of it because you have bills to pay and a family that depends on you?
When you look in the mirror, you tell yourself that age is just a number, and that you feel as young as when you were eighteen years old.
Did you already forget the pills you are taking for back pain, and that lately, you've been thinking more seriously about all the things you haven't accomplished yet? That the ticking of time running out somehow grows louder with each passing day?
Maybe lying to others might not carry life-threatening consequences, but lying to oneself does.
If not the type of danger that attempts to end your biological life necessarily, then the one that threatens your spiritual life.
A good and holy book says: “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” (Mark 3: 24-26)
Lying to oneself carries the destructive power to divide your inner world.
And if your inner world is divided and weakened, how on earth are you going to build a life that reflects your personal truths?
Now, if so it happens that by some miracle and sheer willpower you are able to build a life that anyone else would be proud of, except you… would it be worth it?
How can you let others enjoy the fruits of the life you are building while you, the one that's supposed to actually enjoy it, secretly feel miserable?
How does your conscience rest at night knowing that a truer version of you is trapped and locked in that dark and cold room deep down inside?
Can’t you hear the echo of those screams of agony running through the hallways, begging to be let free?
Isn’t that a cruel act against yourself? One that by all means could be categorized as kidnapping, and in the worst-case scenario, a homicide?
I know the feeling, and it is not pleasant.
The kidnapper vs art
For instance, there was a particular job I had a couple of years ago that, I would tell myself, was going to be great.
In fact, not only this job was going to be great, it was going to be exactly what I needed to build the lifestyle I supposedly wished for. The missing piece.
Very soon I realized that I was faking the whole thing.
Every day I clocked in, was like someone else was attempting to live my life for me, stealing it away.
In the meantime, my truer version would be forcibly locked in a room, kidnapped for eight to twelve hours, almost every day, while this stranger living in my body went to work.
But I endured. I would tell myself that job was what I wanted, and that the pain was worth it.
However, the pain became so much I would cry my eyes out while driving to work, and during the shift, I would cry some more while hiding in the restroom.
It wasn’t until I sat down and made a couple of paintings about how I was feeling that I finally understood the path I was on was very wrong, that it was meant for someone else, but not for me.
The colors, the elements, and the techniques I used when creating those artworks reflected undoubtedly what was going on with my inner world—because art doesn’t lie.
It reveals the subconscious, often before we can put words to it, before we have the chance to distort reality.
Through the creative process of painting, I was able to express myself honestly and confront the emptiness of not living a life that was true to myself
That realization forced me to confront a truth I had been avoiding; I needed to make a change.
I needed to stop lying about who I was and what I wanted, and go for it, regardless of what could happen.
Lies "detox"
“Does that mean that if I stop lying to myself, all my problems will be resolved and I’ll live happily ever after?”
Unfortunately, no. Honesty alone won’t fix everything, but it’s the only place to start.
Being honest and admitting that we have been lying to ourselves, is just the first step.
There will be certain aspects about the story you have been telling yourself that you will need to get rid of, which will feel like peeling off a strong band-aid. Needless to say, the process will be painful.
The second step will be to accept and own everything that remains and which is you, however good, bad, and messy as it might be.
In this stage, the weight of shame you will feel will be immense.
At that point, you’ll realize that you are not as great, as smart, as talented, as young, or as healthy as you thought you were, which will make you feel small and vulnerable in comparison to the grandiose version you created about yourself to hide from your imperfections.
The third step, is to decide what can be done about it, if anything.
Will you need to make peace with it because it is outside of your control and nothing can be done about it…?
…change it because it is unequivocally wrong…?
…or improve upon it because you know you can do better…?
The fourth step, would be to dive-in into the actual healing process, however this looks for your specific situation.
This will be the most hands-on, laborious stage and will require every ounce of your willpower to not give in to your old habits.
Only in this way you will start reaping the real benefits of living a life that feels more authentic to yourself.
“But how can I possibly know if I’m lying to myself?”
This is a very valid question, after all, “How do I know what I don’t know if I’m not even aware of it?”
Answer?
Because of the existent discrepancies between your words, your behavior, and the results you are getting.
In other words, you say one thing, act up in another way, and get disparate results. The narrative between those three things is broken and incongruent.
When the narrative among those three things don’t match, look closely because there you will find the lie that has been sabotaging your life hidden somewhere in the room.
Conclusion
I’m against the concept of lying, after all, to lie to others is, and to a great extent, to lie to oneself.
And to lie to oneself is, as discussed, counterproductive.
That's why I wish I could tell you that I don’t incur into the practice of lying to others, or to myself, for that matter.
But I can’t. Because I do lie sometimes.
To be completely honest and own your truths unapologetically is not as easy as these words might have inadvertently made it look throughout this article. And if they did, my apologies.
This is not for the faint of heart.
It requires a great deal of inner strength and wisdom to hold your ground and express your heart out to others or to yourself regardless of how uncomfortable and painful it may be.
However, I do think that as with any detox process, it takes time “to clean”, to get rid of those lies that have been hunting you at night.
I would like to believe, though, that the satisfaction of accepting and living true to yourself, and thus having peace of mind, is going to be worth every drop of sweat (or tear), and that it will feel better than trying to escape from your true self.
Final words
There is something else I would like to add and which might be paradoxical.
It’s regarding your true self, a concept that, when described throughout the article, may appear static, fixed in space and time.
Yes, it’s true that some parts of us remain the same throughout our lives and that it matters little how much we try to change it, not much will happen.
And this is totally fine.
These unchanging aspects provide us with a safe foundation, a sense of identity which will help us to feel “at home” within ourselves in spite of what happens “out there in the world”, serving as a guiding compass as we navigate life.
But it is also true that other parts of us are in constant motion, always evolving.
This is good, also. Actually, it is necessary.
Otherwise, how would you be able to adjust to the different circumstances and challenges you face every day?
Some experiences demand transformation.
They push us to grow, adjust, and emerge on the other side stronger.
And as a result, some new changes become permanent within you.
They integrate into who you are, reshaping your self-concept in an ongoing cycle.
Therefore, what was true for you yesterday might be a lie today, or vice versa.
But as long as you’re honest about those transitions within your ever-changing self, you will live an authentic life.
In other words, the truth about you can change at any time, but honesty about those truths shouldn’t.
Autor: Jason Berberena
Writer, visual artist, and co-founder of Kreation Artzone