Is lying morally wrong? If you ask most people if they lie, the answer is answered quickly as “No” but is that a lie in itself. We like to think of ourselves as honest, righteous people, therefore, we lie to ourselves about lying. Well, the truth is “we all lie”, maybe not maliciously, but in some cases it is necessary to lie. Our parents lied to us as we were growing up, the lies we tell our children, we lie to our significant others and lies we even tell ourselves. Sometimes the lies are large and other times little white lies, but in the end a lie is an untruth that we must live with ourselves.
First of all lets examine the lies that our parents told us when we were growing up and the lies we learned to tell our children. It’s confusing when you are a kid “Don’t tell lies.” your parents tell you-yet sometimes they don’t seem entirely truthful themselves. Let’s begin with the lies we all hear growing up. This won’t hurt a bit and it did. We will be there soon, not necessarily soon did we arrive. If you work hard in school you will get a good job, personally I know college grads working dead end jobs with barely enough to pay the loans and that is if they are lucky enough to land a job.
If you swallow a watermelon seed it will grow in your belly, that’s something you see everyday. Don’t make that face or it will freeze that way, I have yet to see someone walking around with the faces we made as kids. And of coarse, if you don’t clean your ears out you will grow potatoes inside of your ears, to tell you the truth, I really believed this one. All in all these were harmless lies and in some cases it was a polite way of our parents responding to our childish behaviors and levels of intelligence. And we as parents adopted these sayings. No harm done.
Now that we are grown, we tend to tell our significant others lie. Sometimes the lies can be hurtful and extremely damaging and other times it is out of compassion. If a woman asks a man “Do I look fat in this dress?” or “Do you think she is prettier than me?” this question is a catch 22. If they answer is “yes” look out and if the answer is “No, of coarse not, honey” well that still isn’t the right answer because we as woman dispute the answer. So why ask? Who knows.
So now, if we aren’t being lied to by someone or if we aren’t lying to somebody else, well, we lie to ourselves. How many times have we promised ourselves we are going to eat healthy, exercise more, get organized, blah, blah blah. How many times have I actually stuck to my promise? The drive may last for approximately a day, maybe a week if I am on a roll but more times than none, I end up in a lie to myself.
The question then we ask ourselves, is lying acceptable. In some cases YES. We all do it one time or another. As long as we don’t step over the fine line of morals and lie for reasons to protect ourselves from something we know was wrong to begin with in the first place. Sometimes the truth can hurt and if it spares somebody undo pain or embarrassment it is essential to tell that little white lie. If we were all honest all of the time it would surely be a brutal place to live.
