It's only words.

How do we evaluate words?

Words may not contain truth. In most circumstances, action conveys the truth. Do you agree?

Imagine the number of lies people can tell to avoid an embarrassing situation. To prevent others from knowing the whole truth, we usually keep quiet. However, sometimes, questions are asked and to avoid telling everything which could be embarrassing, we tell white lies to prevent a truth from being known, a truth which could be very private information.

For example, we may be worried for somebody who may have been away from class for too long. To go all over the school asking and searching for the person concerned may reveal the fact that we like that certain person more than we wish to admit. To cover up when asked the reason for the search, we may have to give some excuse such as wishing to find some kind of information regarding work from the person. That, of course, is a lie. But it does not hurt anyone and the intention was not bad; it was merely to not disseminate certain private information.

Whatever it may be, it simply tells us people do lie quite easily to hide certain truth. It could be a business lie. Take a simple every day morning market experience, for example. We approach a fishmonger. The fish does not appear as fresh as we would like it to be. What we normally do is to ask the seller. There are two possible replies. One could be: It’s not very fresh. Another could be: It’s fresh, caught just an hour ago. If you are the fishmonger, which would your answer be? To say that it is not very fresh may drive a customer away. To say that it is fresh would result most probably in a sale. So, what is your reply if you were the fishmonger?

Another instance where it is possible that a lie is fabricated is when people give excuses for forgetting to bring things. To avoid embarrassment, they would give a probable reason for not bringing the things.

Of course, for a person to lie to achieve an advantage or to escape a punishment is not a good practice. As a human, a person who gets away with such a lie would learn that he/she could avoid responsibility with such lies. Soon, such a person would shirk responsibility as experience has taught him that there is a way out for him/her.

This could lead to abuse and the abuse becomes a common practice. When this happens, the person’s conscience will be dulled. The lies increase as he/she becomes adept at telling lies. However, like someone said, “You can bluff some of the people some of the time but you cannot bluff all the people all the time.” Soon, people around this person will recognize him/her as an incorrigible liar.

Once branded an incorrigible liar, nothing the person says would be believed. Remember the story of the boy who cried, ‘Wolf!’, and the consequences of his actions?

If no one believes our words, whatever we say would not contain any value. Nobody would bother to listen any more. Where would our self-esteem be? Without our credibility, what would become of us?