Year-End Reflections 2023: Don't Be a Liar

On or around each year's conclusion, I set aside time to self-reflect, examine what I'm doing well, what can be improved, and just generally spend a bit of time in my own headspace. This year, the topic that's found its way into my reflections is the relationship we have with truth and lying.

I don't anticipate many consider themselves liars. I didn't at first. But now, I'm not so sure. Although we may believe we're engaging in our daily lives honestly, there are likely areas where communication that's less than truthful sneaks in. There are common examples of this such as the, "Honey, do I look fat in this outfit?" example. And sure, we may even believe we're not lying by representing something besides our actual opinion.

Fair enough. But I'm more concerned about another area of lying in my life: taking something I know to be true and making adjustments to reshape it in to what I believe my audience wants to hear. Here are a few examples:

• I'm on my way (I haven't left yet)
• I'm 15 minutes away (I'm at least 30 minutes away)
• I can have a response back to you end of day (no way I get to this before tomorrow)

When constructing this abbreviated list, it occurred to me that many adjusted truths exist around time. And I think that makes sense. Many of us aren't living our lives grossly misrepresenting the truth in areas where it really counts. But at the same time, it's frighteningly easy to soften difficult conversations with a small lie.

Why do we do this? I believe in part, we're deceiving ourselves. We're choosing to interpret our reality through the lens of how we wish things to be rather than how things truly are. We then communicate our artificially constructed reality to others. Building off of the third bulleted example above, our hypothetical person being examined views themself as a highly productive person and wishes to convey their professional aptitude and responsiveness to the external world by proposing unrealistic timelines. The receiving party may be impressed at first, but their disappointment is inevitable.

What do we gain from this? If you're communicating something that's unlikely to be realized, you're in effect lying. Perhaps it was a lazy or an overly optimistic guess, but it doesn't convey value to the recipient. For that reason, I believe that the approach of 'over promise, under deliver' leaves you worse off than 'under promise, over deliver.'

This is because you risk harming the recipient. If I tell you I'll arrive in fifteen minutes and you plan accordingly, you'll find your time wasted when I arrive another fifteen minutes later. I could have been honest and conveyed my tardiness. But instead, I avoided the conversation I suspected might disappoint you and chose to waste your time that could have been otherwise freed up to other activities.

Better, more accurate versions of the truth should always be preferrable to lesser representations of the truth. That should be obvious. Then why do we often participate in lies like what I mentioned above? I suspect the action could be an impulsive response to fear rather than anything tactile. There isn't much to gain from mistruths like this. The truth will come out and you're likely to harm your position more by misrepresenting the situation than you are if you confront the reality head on. Because, after all, the reality of the situation will be revealed whether you lie about it up front or not. Your greatest chances of minimizing damage is being truthful from the start.

For this reason, I desire truth in my life in all areas. The examples mentioned above are mostly social in nature, but I believe benefits accrue to your social, professional, and romantic relationships. Providing the most accurate information to your counterparties will improve their ability to engage with you as well. They may even pick up on your truthfulness and appreciate the mutual benefit accrued. And the benefit accrued to their side is material because they can lower the counterparty risk they subconsciously (or consciously) apply to their relationship with you.

Furthermore, telling the truth in all situations eliminates the charlatan or imposter risk that can cause us social anxiety. It sets us free from the fear of being 'found out.' It simplifies our confrontations and reduces emotional elements because after all, a perceivably objective reality is tough to oppose.

Now let's assume your lie was deliberate. There's administrative cost to maintaining the lie. You now have to retain multiple versions of the truth and remember which version belongs to what party. That sounds exhausting. What mental energy is freed up by needing to maintain just one version of what we perceive to be reality?

For the reasons mentioned here and more, I choose to be deliberately truthful. While I believe those around me will benefit, I also believe that a disproportionate amount of the benefit accrues to me. You could say that being truthful could in a way be selfish, just as similar arguments have been made about charity.

But don't confuse truthfulness with oversharing. Transmitting otherwise unnecessary information that has no chance to do another well should be avoided. Don't be mean and consider your actions virtuous. Going back to my very first example, don't share that the outfit does indeed make the person appear fat when the opinion was requested (unless you really are trying to prevent them from walking into an embarrassing situation).

In conclusion, I've found the old saying to sage: The truth will set you free.