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The cause and effect of lying
The cause and effect of lying
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Did you know that “the average person lies three times within the first minute of meeting a stranger and between ten and two-hundred times a day” (efficientlifeskills.com)? No wonder kids today constantly shout “Liar, liar, pants on fire” to their friends. You probably heard this saying many times as well. Think about the last time you lied. Did you trick others to avoid consequences? Did it ACTUALLY save you from the repercussions? The people in our society have deceived one another into believing that lying is a safeguard. In fact, this conclusion is far from the truth as lying provokes stress and is capable of terminating the bonds of trust between two parties. This is what Barbara Ballinger and Life on NBCNEWS.com reports in their articles, “Brad Blanton: Honestly, Tell the Truth” and “It’s the Truth: Americans Conflicted About Lying”. Lying induces unexpected complications; Who knows? One consequence of lying might come hurdling right at you. To begin with, lying is unjustified as it prompts stress to attack people. According to “Brad Blanton: Honestly, Tell the Truth”, lying is unacceptable since it “keeps you locked in the jail of your own mind. You have to remember what you told each person” (Ballinger 7). People already …show more content…
For example, according to “It’s the Truth: Americans Conflicted About Lying”, “One key cost [of lying] is credibility: Once a person finds out you lied, you lose currency in their eyes” (Life on NBCNEWS.com 12). Even by telling one little lie, you are instantly prone to this circumstance of breaking a bond of trust. Despite this fact, you may still contend that lying is acceptable when protecting one’s feelings. However, once that person finds out that you lied, they will NEVER be able to trust you again. Are you really prepared to see your lifelong companionship crumble down in a matter of
When confronted with a problem, why does the human brain default to lying? Dishonesty is never a solution, although it may seem like the best option in the spur of a moment. My grandma always gave the example of her youth: she avoided and deceived her friend’s sister because the little girl riled everyone. Come to find out, the sister passed the following month due to an illness. I could never imagine the guilt she experienced. Nevertheless, everyone has been deceitful before and many characters were in the tragedy, The Crucible, by playwright Arthur Miller. Reasons for lying are understandable, but most people will admit that mendacity has only caused pain. Lying’s outcome is never positive: it may seem like a good option, for falsehood can save a person’s life, benefit someone, and it eases stress, but these are all transitory.
I do not believe that anyone should get their feelings hurt when just saying an innocent white lie could save them so much drama. Also protective lies are very important to me. If someone is dealing with a lot of stress or a deathly illness, there is no need to put more on them. However, when it comes to peace keeping lies, I believe that they should not be used. These lies are very hard not to use, and I find myself using them despite my hardest efforts. Trust-keeping lies are one of the worst lies because I feel forced to choose between my personal morals and a friendship. Although I try not to lie at all, I find that social lies and protective lies are the most acceptable. I find that peace-keeping lies and trust-keeping lies are unacceptable yet I still understand that sometimes they are
Richard Gunderman asks the question, "Isn 't there something inherently wrong with lying, and “in his article” Is Lying Bad for Us?" Similarly, Stephanie Ericsson states, "Sure I lie, but it doesn 't hurt anything. Or does it?" in her essay, "The Ways We Lie.” Both Gunderman and Ericsson hold strong opinions in regards to lying and they appeal to their audience by incorporating personal experiences as well as references to answer the questions that so many long to confirm.
The society that we live in today is built around lies. Banks lying to customers in order to feed the capitalist mindset, politicians lying to citizens in order to gain power, and charities taking donations with open arms however are stingy when giving back to the cause. The common reason why these organizations lie is to hide what they truly are. People also deceive others in order to hide who they truly are. From a young age, lying becomes engraved into one’s mind, we are taught to walk, talk, and lie.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
A quote by Hitler in Mein Kampf explains “if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”. I recently attended a lecture on fraud and forensic accounting, with a focus on lie detection techniques. The lecture was presented by Pamela Meyer, the author of Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception. Meyers is a fraud examiner and the CEO of Calibrate, an institution that trains organizations in lie detection. Meyers presentation began by giving several truths about lying, such as: lying is an attempt to connect wishes and fantasies. She also gave facts about lying in the workplace, highlighting that there is an annual global fraud loss of $3.7 million. As the lecture continued, Meyers focused on two types of lying: verbal dodging and body language. Meyers presentation emphasized on the idea that adults lie constantly. After the presentation, I began questioning the prevalence of lying in society, and the relationship between
We lie all the time, lying is not something new to our culture. We lie to our parents, we lie to our friends, we even lie to our significant other, but why do we do it? There is not one set reason on why we lie but they can vary from an insignificant reason to something more nefarious. A good operational definition of a lie is “A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person or group who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally.” (Freitas-Magalhães) We have been raised to know that lying is usually a bad thing, and it’s better to tell the truth, not to mention the circumstances get exponentially worse if you are caught lying. No one wants to be labeled as a liar, or untrustworthy. This may sound unorthodox but I personally think lying is perfectly fine; depending on the situation. If you have a prima-facie duty to be dishonest it’s perfectly acceptable. Ross says a prima facie duty or obligation is an actual duty. “One’s actual duty is what one ought to do all things considered.” (Carson) I’m not the only one who finds this too be true. Ross would also agree with me, He says “Lying is permissible or obligatory when the duty not to lie conflicts with a more important or equal important prima facie duty.” (Carson) As I was doing research on this topic I did read one extremely compelling argument on why we ought not to lie. Aristotle basically said a person who makes a defense for lying could never be trusted. (King.)
Honesty is a characteristic that everyone should possess. However, being honest is a difficult task for many people. Living honestly means allowing a person’s true self to be exposed to others. Honesty is considered owning up to one’s wrongdoings and not lying, cheating, or stealing. Being honest is a trait that many people believe is obsolete. Even though every person interprets honesty differently, it all stems back to telling the truth. Being honest allows a person to earn respect from their peers. Honesty is allowing oneself to be completely exposed by being truthful.
Can you remember the last time someone lied to you? Or how about the last time you lied to someone else? Did you ever stop and ask yourself why? There are so many different reasons that a person might lie. Maybe a lie about something to keep oneself out of trouble, or even a lie to impress other people. But either way there are always going to be serious consequences or effects of lying.
It's actually easier to just tell the truth. There are many reasons for this. One reason is, people don't have to think of lame excuses, making it much faster. Another reason is, people who tell the truth won't get in as much trouble when someone finds out that they lied to them.
Growing up, we are always told to never lie because it is the worst thing you could ever do. “Lying will only lead to a horrible situation with less than mediocre results. While lying is not always good, it is not always bad either. Samuel Butler once said “Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
... them. I like Martin Luther believe that sometimes you must lie for the greater good, but that does not mean that lying is right. One must be very careful, No lie must every be uttered that may hurt someone else. This may be a little tricky. For example, telling your best friend that she looks fine in a ridiculous outfit, may have been said in order to spare her feelings, but after returning from her outing, you find out that she was humiliated and made fun of by strangers for her outrageous outfit. A good friend would have told her the truth in a kindly manner, that her outfit was unappropiate and saved her from humiliation. There may be many unforeseen circumstances that can cause your seemingly innocent lie to hurt someone. Even though I have admitted to lying, and have confessed that I will continue to lie I still believe that honesty is always the best policy.
Telling the truth teaches one person self- respect for themselves and others as well. Telling the truth also sets a good example for others to do the same thing and make a “chain reaction”. People can make a “chain reaction” by passing on what they have done from one person to another, and before you know it, everyone is changing greatly, and the world is progressing tremendously. Lies are told all around the world, and they are told every day. One lie can often lead to another lie and cause you to be caught up in one big lie that will be hard to get out of if people do not tell the truth. If a person thinks that is okay to lie, they better think again, the truth always comes out no matter how hard a person tries to keep it in, or how much someone thinks that they can get away with lying. No person can keep in or hold a grudge with what they have done. After all, telling the truth is the right thing to do, and everyone should do it. Telling the truth is always much easier than the trouble of a
As stated in the article “Why Honesty is the Best Policy for Simplicity” by Joshua Becker, “Simplicity in life cannot be achieved without honesty.” This shows that if you don’t lie, you don’t have to worry as much. For instance, let us say that you crashed your best friend’s go-kart. You could tell him (or her) that somebody mugged you and stole the car or, you could tell them the truth. If you lied, you would have to worry if they would find out and, if they ever found out, they would be even madder than they would have been if you had said the truth. Also, once you lie, it becomes like a web crafted on the deceptions that you’ve told. Just to make the first lie reasonable, you have to lie to everyone every time they mentioned it. Even Abraham Lincoln stated, “No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.” This shows that if you lie for long enough, you might forget what started the lie and end up revealing the truth by mistake. Honesty is the best policy, especially in
A story has numerous important effects in our daily lives. It has been one of the most effective source of inspiration know to man. In this I would like to tell you about the something which was taught to me in childhood. “Behavior” the word defined as “a person who was well treated to represents themselves to others. This thing is generally comes from our family; the one quote was I always remember “Telling a lie and boast may end up in trouble”. When I tell lie to someone this quote comes into my mind. I can still remember when I was six year old and whenever I had made any mischief by saying a lie to family, my grandmother used to tell this story in brief.