“We are what we repeatedly do” Aristotle
At the beginning of October I embarked on a personal challenge I would like to call “taming my tongue”, which entailed telling the truth no matter what. Now I’m no pathological liar but over the past couple of days I’ve come to realise just how much I lie on a daily basis. And by lying I don’t mean hiding a man’s body under my bed and then telling people the off smell in my room is due to the bacon and egg sandwich I had forgotten under the bed for 8 months, no, I’m talking silly lies, like telling my mom I was actually about to call her when she calls to find out why I hadn’t called in three days or telling the beggar on the side of the road I have no food for her while subtly pushing my half eaten Steers burger under my seat (not that I do such things). Minor things, harmless even, but lies nonetheless.
I don’t care who you are but it’s not easy to be 100% honest (this includes “omitting the truth” as others may say, where you neither lie nor are you fully honest). The truth is (see what I did there?), sometimes you are pushed into a corner and the only lifeline that you have is a little “harmless” white lie. Take my case for instance, when I was in Grade Two, every Monday we would have to write “News” of what we did over the weekend and the people with the best news would be granted the privilege of re-telling their news in oral form to the entire class. Now my family did not do fun family things over the weekend so after growing tired of my boring News, one Monday I simply wrote the date, the heading “News” and one sentence “This weekend I sat and did nothing”, I remember my teacher, Mrs Rattray, wrote boldly in her red pen “All weekend???” then she put a big fat sad face! That was the last time I ever had boring news, from then on I miraculously had fun things to do on weekends, and when I say fun I mean a breath short of going to Disney World! I had more fun stories to tell than my Caucasian friends who always for some reason did things on weekends (??) I finally had a chance to shine on the grade two carpet, re-telling my news! Of course 99% of my stories were merely figments of my imagination and in retrospect I think Mrs Rattray most likely saw right through my white lies but she probably enjoyed the stories too much to give me the third degree!
Lying is really just a way of running away from reality mixed with the fear taking accountability for your actions (more often than not, of what you have not done)! While my weekend news of fictitious stories were harmless, they were unnecessary and benefitted nobody. They achieved nothing but painted me as someone that I was not.
It’s easy to tell your boss you’ve done something when you haven’t, what is not easy is admitting that you forgot because you know it will make you look incompetent. But hey, once in a while we all make mistakes and at times some tasks slip our minds. Sure you may say you’ve sent that email or balanced those books or called your agency to schedule a meeting knowing very well you haven’t then hastily do it before anybody notices to make it look like “you got this” but when the truth comes out, as it usually does, all you are left with is egg on your face and a tainted reputation. Be a man/woman of your word, don’t leave things for last minute and don’t make promises you can’t keep, it’s such things that push you into a corner forcing you to lie and not just in the work place but in life in general. Learn to tame your tongue!
In closing I would like to close off with the following quote by Mahatma Ghandi which pretty much summarises my point of this whole post:
“Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values”
Therefore, think before you speak and think before you act because your actions and your values are what build your character!
