Lying has been on my mind this summer. There is a presidential candidate whose brand is, literally, lying. The Washington Post fact-checked the number of lies he told during the years when he was in office: 30,573 lies. And yet, he is the candidate for a major political party. Apparently, people prefer being told what they want to hear, even when it isn’t true.
Then, a few weeks ago, I heard a news story on the radio. It stated that the average person tells fourteen lies a day. This surprised me. I have whole days where I don’t even make fourteen statements. An internet search turned up more realistic statistics. One study said people lie twice a day. Another asserted this: “The average person lies four times, totaling 1,460 lies each year. While men lie about six times a day, women lie three times a day, on average.”
Then, a few weeks ago, I heard a news story on the radio. It stated that the average person tells fourteen lies a day. This surprised me. I have whole days where I don’t even make fourteen statements. An internet search turned up more realistic statistics. One study said people lie twice a day. Another asserted this: “The average person lies four times, totaling 1,460 lies each year. While men lie about six times a day, women lie three times a day, on average.”
And then…. I had a troubling conversation with a young friend, a recent graduate of an elite college. We were talking about lying, and when I expressed my shock about the fourteen lies, she told me that she had no difficulty believing that at all, and that she probably lied that frequently… and maybe more.
I was gob-smacked. She saw no problem and was actually proud of her facility in misrepresenting truth. She explained that people like to be told what they want to hear. In other words, it’s not her fault. It’s other people who have incentivized her to lie. And that led me to consider our respective situations. I am comfortably retired. She is just starting her career in a world that is many times more competitive than the one I faced at her age. Is honesty a privilege? A class issue? Are my survival needs at risk when I tell the truth? Are hers? And does that require a tabling of judgement?
I was gob-smacked. She saw no problem and was actually proud of her facility in misrepresenting truth. She explained that people like to be told what they want to hear. In other words, it’s not her fault. It’s other people who have incentivized her to lie. And that led me to consider our respective situations. I am comfortably retired. She is just starting her career in a world that is many times more competitive than the one I faced at her age. Is honesty a privilege? A class issue? Are my survival needs at risk when I tell the truth? Are hers? And does that require a tabling of judgement?
But here’s the thing: Once a person has been caught telling a lie, it’s rational to consider that anything else they say may also be a lie. Not a judgement, just a logical corollary. Also, in order to be accountable to ourselves and to others, we need to be working with our best understanding of the facts when we make our choices. Liars restrict our options in order to keep their own open.
But do we operate rationally? Thinking of this current presidential candidate, I would say that apparently half of the country does not. But maybe that’s too black-and-white. Maybe logic is subject to Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. That’s a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behavior. These are: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. Maybe we need to hear what what we want to hear.
A dependent child, for instance, needs to know that their primary caregivers are reliable; otherwise they can become overwhelmed with anxiety and even terror. They need to protect themselves from knowing that their parents lie to them. I know myself, from growing up with folks in active addiction, that I learned to “fix” all the lies: “I must have heard them wrong. It’s somehow my fault. They didn’t mean what they said.” It was a survival strategy. In my early years in recovery, it would take me months before I realized that someone was lying to me. Now, with thirty-plus years in Alanon, I can allow myself to recognize a lie within a day, or even an hour. I still have difficulty identifying the lie in the moment.
But do we operate rationally? Thinking of this current presidential candidate, I would say that apparently half of the country does not. But maybe that’s too black-and-white. Maybe logic is subject to Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. That’s a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behavior. These are: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. Maybe we need to hear what what we want to hear.
A dependent child, for instance, needs to know that their primary caregivers are reliable; otherwise they can become overwhelmed with anxiety and even terror. They need to protect themselves from knowing that their parents lie to them. I know myself, from growing up with folks in active addiction, that I learned to “fix” all the lies: “I must have heard them wrong. It’s somehow my fault. They didn’t mean what they said.” It was a survival strategy. In my early years in recovery, it would take me months before I realized that someone was lying to me. Now, with thirty-plus years in Alanon, I can allow myself to recognize a lie within a day, or even an hour. I still have difficulty identifying the lie in the moment.
But my young friend’s pride in her lying really bothered me. She wasn’t talking about lying when survival needs were on the line. She was talking about across-the-board lying any time that she perceived the truth as being anything less than what the other person wanted to hear. I really struggled with what I wanted to say to her, and as I did that, I realized that the basis of my struggle lay in a lack of words to describe my experience of working a recovery program to be honest. It was beyond “Thou shalt not tell a lie,” and, for lack of words, that was how I was sounding… preachy, judgmental, holier than thou.
And then I remembered something that author and activist Sonia Johnson said: “The means are the ends. HOW we do something is WHAT we get.”
And then I remembered something that author and activist Sonia Johnson said: “The means are the ends. HOW we do something is WHAT we get.”
Yes. That’s the thing. And suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted to say to my young friend. And I knew the analogy I would use. It was mountain climbing. Both of us are avid hikers, and my friend will often choose the most challenging route up the mountain. Some of the mountains that we climb have roads to the summit. We could actually drive to the top, but we don’t. That’s not the point. The point is getting there by hiking.
For me, lying is like driving to the summit. If standing at the top is the goal, it makes sense to drive. It’s easier. I don’t get tired. And I get there a whole lot faster.
How can my friend and I explain why we choose to hike? What are the words? Joy, pride in achievement, exhilaration in pushing limits? Are there words to describe the experience of being in nature, moving in nature without mechanical aids, being in communion with ourselves among other forms of life?
For me, lying is like driving to the summit. If standing at the top is the goal, it makes sense to drive. It’s easier. I don’t get tired. And I get there a whole lot faster.
How can my friend and I explain why we choose to hike? What are the words? Joy, pride in achievement, exhilaration in pushing limits? Are there words to describe the experience of being in nature, moving in nature without mechanical aids, being in communion with ourselves among other forms of life?
There are a ton of words for the shortcuts. A ton of words for why they make sense. But I really struggle to explain why I prefer to walk uphill for hours, sometimes at great risk. It’s one of those “if you know, you know" things. And, as Sonia says, the means are the end.
So what I would say to my young friend is this: Lying is the shortcut to the summit. Her definition of ‘getting there’ is cheating her out of an incredible journey and an incalculable richness of experience. When she hikes to the top, that’s what she gets: the hike to the top. She gets the satisfaction of her effort, and so much more. She also gets a community of like-minded hikers.
When someone works to tell the truth all the time, it’s a steep climb and sometimes a rugged one. Sometimes they don’t get where they wanted to go. Sometimes they have to recalibrate the route. But they build spiritual muscle. I can promise that. They build faith in themselves. They also hone their technique. I’m talking about communication technique. I suppose there is some skill required in telling people what they want to hear, but it’s nothing like the skill set you have to build when you are habitually learning to tell an unpopular or inconvenient truth. When someone gets to the goal without lying, they earn and they own the summit experience in a way that can’t really be described. You just have to live it.
So what I would say to my young friend is this: Lying is the shortcut to the summit. Her definition of ‘getting there’ is cheating her out of an incredible journey and an incalculable richness of experience. When she hikes to the top, that’s what she gets: the hike to the top. She gets the satisfaction of her effort, and so much more. She also gets a community of like-minded hikers.
When someone works to tell the truth all the time, it’s a steep climb and sometimes a rugged one. Sometimes they don’t get where they wanted to go. Sometimes they have to recalibrate the route. But they build spiritual muscle. I can promise that. They build faith in themselves. They also hone their technique. I’m talking about communication technique. I suppose there is some skill required in telling people what they want to hear, but it’s nothing like the skill set you have to build when you are habitually learning to tell an unpopular or inconvenient truth. When someone gets to the goal without lying, they earn and they own the summit experience in a way that can’t really be described. You just have to live it.
Lying as a way of life reduces the infinitude of life to a singular-dimension, board game of getting what you want. I can’t put it more plainly than this: You lose. You lose even when you win. You may not notice or even miss the people whose trust you have forfeited. You may be progressively extinguishing your capacity for joy in exchange for the cheap thrill of empty goals. You are definitely devaluing truth and authenticity every day. And, by the way, you’ll need to make a lot of money, because lying cuts you off from the rhythms and flows of reality, which teem with serendipity, synergy and karma. You’ll be needing to pave your own road wherever you go.
The means are the ends. If you get where you’re going by lying, what you will get is a lie. And you better take a picture when you get there; because it's quite possible no one's going to believe you.
The means are the ends. If you get where you’re going by lying, what you will get is a lie. And you better take a picture when you get there; because it's quite possible no one's going to believe you.
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