If you are feeling stressed and under the weather these days you may be telling too many lies. If you want to feel better you should start by telling the truth more often.
A University of Notre Dame study concludes that people who lie less enjoy better overall mental and physical health. They are also less likely to feel tense or sad and have fewer sore throats and headaches. Their personal relationships are more satisfactory and their social interactions are smoother.
Most people don’t realize this because most of us are liars. We lie to family, we lie to friends and we lie to strangers. It is estimated that most people are lied to from 10 to 200 times on any given day. Spouses lie to each other in one out of every 10 interactions. Total strangers will lie three times to each other within 10 minutes of meeting.
The main reason we choose to lie is because it works, even if the remedy is only temporary. Telling a big whopper in the right circumstances will give us time to escape and cover our tracks. Then we can fabricate more lies to close any loopholes in our original story. It’s not called a web of lies for nothing.
Psychologists tell us that lying is a collaborative process. Lies themselves are powerless until somebody chooses to believe them. In some cases we even pretend to believe they are true rather than confront a difficult situation or a dishonest person.
Some little fibs are harmless and sometimes we tell a lie to spare someone’s feelings or to make someone feel better. There’s no real harm in that. But when we graduate to the big lie, the devastating lies and deceptions that bankrupt multi-million dollar corporations and destroy national governments, that’s when lives are ruined and families lose hope for the future.
An example of the big lie played out in last week’s U.S. presidential debate. Mitt Romney won the debate by lying his face off. His lies were huge and involved trillions of dollars. Obama also lied but his were fewer and smaller.
For his efforts Mr. Romney was judged to be more presidential and his campaign was invigorated while a less dishonest president was all but written off by the press as tired, weak and ineffective.
For its part, the U.S. media keeps a running total of the bald-faced lies and report them as facts on the six o’clock news. They may even throw in a few whoppers of their own to spice things up. Lying to the public has suddenly become more popular and effective than attack ads.
Canadians know all about being lied to by politicians. In a poll by Elections Canada, dishonesty in politics is the number one reason why Canadians don’t vote. The political process in this country has been made irrelevant by the lies of candidates, politicians and government officials.
Canadians, especially young ones, are too well-informed to waste their time sorting truth from lies at election time and they are fed up trying to decide which candidate is the best of a decidedly bad lot. Every four years all parties renew their pledge to change their behaviour. Have you noticed any difference?
For me honesty has always been the best policy, if not the most practical. When I was a boy my mother always knew when I was withholding the truth. Even when I kept my mouth shut, one look at my lying eyes told her I was hiding something.
I always had too much conscience to be a good liar. I also knew that once you start lying you can never stop and you have to remember every lie you ever told so you don’t get caught. I don’t need the memory work and I can’t handle the guilt so I aim to stick as close to the truth as possible. It’s just easier that way.
I try to keep most of my lies little and white. I told my kids all about Santa Claus and I sometimes embellish my fishing stories. I don’t think anybody gets hurt. In fact there are hundreds of convenient little deceptions that we all use every day to smooth over life’s little speed bumps. Even Mom would be okay with that.
But the big-time lies – the ones that are used to win elections, to deny people their rights and destroy innocent families – those would bring a tear to her eye.
And that’s the truth.
