WHY LYING IS NOT COOL
By: Mayuri Sarmah
Tags: Morality, Deceit, Lie, Lying

Lie — To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. In simple words, it means to speak falsely.

It is the art of saying something which makes one feel comfortable and easily escape hard realities. Lying is the easiest way out for many people when they are in some kind of danger or the shortest way to gain something they need. Some people are so comfortable lying that they hardly speak any truth in their day to day life.

Reasons behind lying?

1. Comfort: It is very easy to put or turn away someone or something by simply lying. The comfort of lying without facing untoward actions compels people to continue to lie.

2. Save: Some people are by nature very possessive. They are fond of certain places, people and want to save those to themselves alone. That reason may lead one to continually lie. They may lie in order to save themselves from embarrassing or awkward moments.

3. Protect: Sometime people lie in order to protect themselves or their closed ones. In difficult circumstances, lying alone saves life.

4. Maintain status quo: Once you lie, in order to support that, there will be chain of lies spoken. This becomes necessary to maintain the status quo.

Why it is not cool?

1. Being caught: How uncool it is to tell a lie and get caught. When you tell a lie once, all your truths becomes questionable. No matter what the circumstances are, your credibility will be jeopardized. It diminishes the faith and trust between human beings.

2. Self doubt: When one lies, she/he cannot help but feel a little doubtful inside them. In order to make a lie seem convincing, one has to continuously keep in mind the false narrative told to others. Any thought of being exposed makes them feel uneasy and doubtful.

3. Legal problems: Ignorance of law is not innocence. Many a times lying can do more harm than any good. In legal terms, lying is called perjury. In the United States of America, if one lies and gets caught, they will face criminal charges for it.

4. Bad karma: If you believe in the law of attraction or karma, then you know ‘What you sow is what you reap’. This one thing alone is enough to deter one from letting out bad karma into the universe, because what goes around comes around.’

“For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth” (Bo Bennett). This holds true for most cases except where there is a question of life or death. The act of lying is immoral in itself. Whether in short or long run, the one that gets harmed most with the lie will be the person who tells it. For instance, let us consider an imaginary scenario where a patient goes to a doctor and gets himself consulted for some bodily issue he is facing. The doctor diagnoses and prescribes him medicines. It is the duty of the patient to religiously follow his medications. Now if the patient does not follow proper diet to go with his medicines or he starts feeling better midway of his course and stops the medicine, he may fall sick again. On being consulted again, if he lies to the doctor, who will it ultimately harm? It is the patient himself. The doctor may think the patient needs more powerful doses and prescribe them. Taking that may adversely affect his health and recovery.