Tuesday, October 2, 2007

truth or consequences

I was going to write a big rant Elsewhere in response to another ridiculous internet thread about lying, but frankly I can't be arsed.

I will say this: people who habitually lie about small things often do so because, either in their families of origin or in another significant longterm relationship, they had to deal with another person who (even if they paid lip service to the concept of honesty being the best policy) flipped out whenever they were told something they didn't want to hear. The future habitual liar learned that life was much more easy and tolerable if such unpleasant truths were thus glossed over or distorted and a survival mechanism was born.

One of the things that I personally am working towards in my quest to be a more mature and healthy individual is to be the kind of person that the truth can be told to. That means being honest about the things I don't want to know and to accept the truths about the things I do want to know with grace and calmness and rationality.

Oh, stop laughing.

xoxo

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good goal. Some people, though, will continue to lie even if you encourage them to tell the truth.

malevolent andrea said...

That's true. You can't control other people's behavior. ::cough::

I think you can, however, make it much easier for other people to behave the way you would like them to by adjusting your own behavior. Or maybe I'm full of crap. It's been known to happen. Even here. :-)