Everyday Canvas

The Worst Lies

Prompt:
"The worst lies are the ones you tell yourself that your life will be fine."
Write about this in your Blog entry today.

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Internal falsehoods? Who isn't guilty of them at one time or another?

Yet, we learn, hopefully, most of the truths about --and/or-- concerning ourselves over the years. If we don't, we trap ourselves in a cycle of denial, which hinders personal development, and we miss the opportunities for positive change.

My first big lie to myself was about my mother, and not that she did anything wrong. I thought as a very young child, Mom was faultless, and she had the highest authority, and she never made mistakes. Wrong! But the wrong was mine, not hers. Later in my more grown-up years, facing the truth about Mom, that she could goof just as much as the next person, was such a shock that it damaged, for a short time, my views of her. It took me quite a while to realize that she was a mother and a human being just like every other mother or person with faults and erring sights about things.

Much later, I found about this in my psychology classes. I learned that most children go through what I went through. Did that make me wary of lying to myself about other things? Nope! Other lies did follow, but I think and hope that I caught most of them in time.

Consequently, it is only human and it probably is my modus operandi, at least at first sight, to find the good side in everything. Is this another deception or a hopeful wish, I am still working on solving this puzzle.

People like me, individuals, who deceive themselves, often create a distorted version of what is real and what is false. This may be due to the willingness to protect our egos and find a temporary refuge in the lies we tell ourselves. This may seem harmless in the beginning, but its long term effects point to self-delusion, a wrong perception of reality, and even a gradual loss of personal integrity. After all, if I can't trust myself, who can I trust?

Probably no one! Especially when the lies I and others tell ourselves pop up in various areas in life. Some of us force ourselves to think that our harmful habits, for example those bad for our health, are okay. Others may lie to themselves to justify an unethical behavior, telling themselves that if no one saw their bad deeds, all is fine.

But it is not. It is not because there is danger in evading the truth several times over as people find themselves trapped in a cycle of denial, which is against their very own well-being and progress in life. Instead, a truer understanding of oneself would help them much more.

Yet, such an understanding requires courage to face uncomfortable truths and to challenge beliefs that have become ingrained in the mind. This is because self-deception always builds protective, strong walls around itself and it takes a lot of work to bring those walls down.

Human behavior is complex and internal falsehoods can become a habit if we are not aware of them in time. Otherwise, we deny ourselves a more fulfilling life with positive change.