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Health & Fitness

Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth?

My mother taught me all I needed to know about the truth.

I know Mother’s Day is two months away yet, but my mother has been on my mind lately so I thought I would go ahead and write about something that I associate with her – telling the truth.

My mother was a shy person, a bookish person, not a joiner. To all appearances she practiced a hands-off style of parenting. Now that I look back on my childhood from the perspective of being a parent myself, I am totally flummoxed at how she managed to instill in me such strong ideas about how to live my life. Did I accomplish that with my own kids? I have no idea. I think so. I sure hope so.

There was no overt “teaching” that I recall, although she must have explicitly told me of her expectations for my behavior, and why it was a good idea for me to act in certain ways. The specific concept that I am remembering is: do not tell lies – ever. Well, you know what I mean – if you have to lie to keep your loved ones from danger, you lie. I mean the other kind of lying, the deliberate lying that harms rather than saves from harm.

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I could not lie to my mother. I mean it was actually impossible – not that I didn’t try. That’s how I knew it was impossible; I tried and failed a few times, got the message, and stopped trying. I would never have been a good liar anyway. Oh I could embroider the truth with the best of them, I have a vivid imagination, but I am a terrible liar because it shows on my face if I lie, and besides that, I can never remember what I said in a lie. Thus I get tangled up in the perpetuation of the lie, and lose all control over it.  It is actually easier for me to tell the truth. There’s less to keep track of, less to spin, less to rectify and straighten out, less to regret.

My mother was of the “I’d rather have a thief in the house, than a liar” school. I did not take her at her word and enter into a life of boosting my neighbors’ jewelry. But somehow the philosophy of truth telling wormed its way deep into my soul, and I have done my best to be truthful.

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Perhaps this is why I am so amazed at how much wholesale lying goes on today. I am amazed that so many people expect to be lied to and don’t seem particularly bothered by it. But I find it difficult to live my life never knowing if I am being lied to. Like a child, I expect the truth, I want things to be fair, to be out in the open. I’m sure, on some level, that’s why I spent most of my professional life working with young children: they have it figured out. Two of the greatest statements to come out of a child’s mouth are the very indignant declarations –“ That’s Not Fair!” or “That’s Not True!” Young children are bad liars; you can almost always spot the attempted truth bending. Of course, if they are persistent, and practice a lot, they can become accomplished liars by the time they are ready to join the ranks of adults in the world.

Tell the truth and people can trust you, depend on you, believe in you. Lie, and you cast people adrift. You create disequilibrium, unease. You cause people some pain, and ultimately, when your lies are exposed, you cause yourself pain, perhaps very serious pain, with very serious consequences.

Lying is theft. So now we are out of the realm of bad behavior and into Commandment territory. Theft: serious business; there are laws about theft. When you lie, you rob people of the truth; you have robbed them of something they needed and had a right to expect. They may well have needed that truth to make important decisions, to determine a course of action, to act responsibly.

I know, I know. Grow up, you say. How naïve can you be?  But how much lying is enough lying?  When did we pass the fuzzy line that separates little “white” lies from big, fat, multi-colored ones?  When, and more important, why, do we go along  expecting to be lied to? We have accommodated lying.

I know everyone is not lying. I know there are lots of adults out there doing their best to live honest lives. But, there is now so much lying going on, that it is seriously affecting our ability to make decisions, to act responsibly, and to just plain live our lives.

How do you buy goods and services if business people lie to you about the effectiveness or safety of their products?  How do you know what food, drugs, cars, etc are safe if you can’t trust the FDA , The Dept. of Agriculture, and other governmental agencies to tell you the truth about product safety? How do you invest your money if banks and investment companies lie to you about their products? How can you make health decisions if the health care industry lies to you about research on drugs and medical procedures? I’m not even going to raise the question of how can you believe politicians.

We argue about the truth because it’s hard to find it, and when we think we might have found it, we are not entirely sure about it. So, that’s where we are now – lost in the tangled web of deception, or possible deception. All those liars out there could have used a good stint in the care of my mother, the lady who wouldn’t tolerate lying. It is much easier to tell the truth. There’s less to keep track of, less to spin, less to have to rectify, less to regret.

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