… To protect yourself. Humans lie, they lie a lot. You can expect every conversation you have to contain about 10 lies, counting the omissions, evasions and vagueness as well as blatant untruths.

Why do we lie? For reasons as numerous as our characters and goals, yet most lies are not actually there to harm but to protect. Women lie more to protect themselves or someone they love from hurt or pain, men lie more to acquire status in the dominance hierarchy and show themselves as being better or more in some way. Most of the lies we tell are harmless and may, at times, really serve to protect or help an end goal in a “fake it till you make it” kind of way, but the ultimate way to protect yourself in the long game is getting to the truth.

Truth is ultimately unavoidable, and no amount of sugar-coating can protect you from the eventual unravelling of a lie, which will in all likelihood be far worse than it would have been have you just faced the truth sooner. You know what we mean – the lies you’ve been telling yourself refusing to see some dark problematic thing in the light of day and smoothing it over with excuses, procrastination, polishing it over with white lies because it’s easier, because you just can’t deal with this right now, because you have too much on your plate, because it’s difficult, shameful, awkward, because it’s a base to a far bigger lie… We all know lying to others because we’re too vulnerable and need a shield, because we don’t feel enough in some way, because the truth leaves us hanging, because we need to put on a brave, competent, strong or whatever else face on… The pain of the truth is very much real but it lasts far shorter and, after the initial sting, something is released. The ability to see the reality as it is will allow you to make better choices aligned with it. You can ignore the real for a while quite successfully but it’s a losing game when the tally comes in. We wouldn’t buy a toaster or a phone without checking the facts of their specifications, but settle for half-truths in relationships to ourselves and others. Building a life on a lie is far worse than not having as much pixels on your phone camera as you’d like or not having your toast crispy just the right way.

Keeping a constant lie and hearing or speaking words you know not to be what you really feel or think chips away at your personhood and integrity, like you chose not to step into your integrity and live fully. Truth trumps lie and is freeing, no matter how difficult. So make it a goal to get to the truth. How? Firstly, kill the ego. It’s not about you but about the truth and the goal of the situation. If you feel hurt, offended, sad or pissed during the process of acquiring the fact, it is really secondary to the transformative power the fact has, as it allows you to really see. The internal mess you feel due to ego pouting will pass. You’ll control your emotions as the objective is to see the situation and the world better and clearer. Secondly, you get out of your own way and dispense with the self-harming mind chatter putting up unnecessary ghosts of obstacles that aren’t there, such as telling you you’re not enough something; you’ve been naive, blind, that you should feel shame for not knowing (or admitting) sooner… We defeat ourselves in our head long before the battle begins. Sure you might have been naive, lazy, manipulated, and manipulative or anything else you can think of, but it doesn’t matter now you know the truth – that’s kind of what it does, it puts you outside of your own narrow little mind palace you’ve made into a daydream or a horror and allows you to act with agency and effect. The reaction that helps move things along is the only one that matters after the truth or the lie cycle begins again. Thirdly, we don’t judge and shame others or ourselves. We try to understand, analyse and focus on the pragmatics of the new truth. There is good in everything and most lies (not all of them) had a good intention when they began but got perverted by the scaffolding of other lies built upon the original one.

No one really likes to lie or be lied to, but we do it to not feel as much pain or have so much confrontation. The thing is that intelligent confrontation, as well as pain that makes you up your game, are good and they build mental and emotional resilience to the harshness and unpredictability of life. Contrary to Jack Nicholson screamed in “A Few Good Men” – “You can’t handle the truth!” – shortly after spilling the beans of the truth – you can handle the truth, even if it tears you down. The first step to building anew is to demolish the old and clear the area. That’s what truth does – it breaks you down and changes the landscape so you can build a stronger foundation based in reality.

Some lies are worse than others, and the ones we tell ourselves usually harm us more than those we tell to others. Get to the truth. Life opens up and blooms once our thoughts, feelings, words and actions align.