I Tried to Stop Lying Cold Turkey. It Was Not Easy.
By: Taylor Foreman
Tags: Life, Lies, Truth, Communication, Self-awareness

I Tried to Stop Lying Cold Turkey. It Was Not Easy.

Photo by Anh Trần on Unsplash

For most of the pandemic, I’ve been FaceTimeing my good friend, who happens to also be a writer. Not much else to do in quarantine, most days we talk an hour or more.

We talk about life, philosophy, writing, relationships, creativity, and sometimes just TV and fart jokes.

After all these months, I have a deep sense of when I am boring him. I started to think hard about why I was sometimes boring him.

At first, I thought it was when I would talk too much about ideas. He is more visual and creative. Maybe I was more of a books guy and he was more of an art guy.

After a while, I had to throw out that theory. Sometimes, he loved talking about ideas with me.

What was it, then?

One day, it hit me.

He gets bored when I am lying.

Lying Was My Norm

I’m not talking about simple, straightforward lying — like saying something happened when it didn’t happen (although I have done that, too).

I’m talking about saying something I read in a book as if it’s my idea — saying something to sound smarter than I am, or to gain a little status, or to seem funnier than I am, etc.

Judged by that metric, was I ever telling the truth? Was it even possible?

For example, maybe I’m reading a book about mythology. I start talking about archetypes and how they are making my writing better. I don’t fully understand what I am saying — and I’m pretending like I am. Not only that, the real motivation — on a deep, almost invisible level — is to seem smart and interesting. His eyes glaze over.

Interesting…

I decided to dig deeper.

I Stopped Lying For a Month

Of course, I knew I would slip up here and there. But what if I gave it my best shot for 30 days? No lying; Just 100% honesty.

It took me until my friend called me to see the absolute severity of my lying problem.

After chatting about our day, I hit a wall. I had nothing to say. I sat there, quiet. I started to tell him something, then I had to stop… No, that was a lie… I say:

“I’m practicing not lying. Now that I’m talking to you, I think 99% of what I say is at least a little bit a lie.”

We sit in silence. Oh, man, I think, maybe you have to lie to be a human!

That may end up being true, but I’m finishing these 30 days.

The Dude in My Head

After about a week, I discovered a dude in my head that seems to know when I’m lying. I don’t know how he knows. I don’t even know how he’s not me, exactly.

He’s just this feeling that what I said wasn’t exactly true. He was there the whole time, I just learned to ignore him over the years.

Now, I had to learn to listen to him again. What I found was that not only does he know when I’m lying — he knows when I am telling the truth.

I realized that “the truth,” at least in this context, is when I am saying or doing something that aligns what I say I am with what I think I am with what I act like I am — all at the same time.

When I tell a story about my life and make people laugh — and it’s borrowed from something I heard on a podcast — the dude knows, and he is judging the hell out of me.

“Self-esteem is the reputation you keep with yourself. And you always know.”

When I say something that connects or makes people laugh, and it came from a spontaneous, unplanned, non-needy part of me, then the dude sees that, too.

He absolutely rejoices when that happens.

The Words Eventually Came Back

For days I would start to say something, stop…. Rethink, then decide to not speak at all. It was super awkward.

My friend was patient with me through my experiment. He allowed and forgave the stammering and silences. We plowed ahead, trying to have a conversation — even though I was being a total weirdo.

After a while, when I spoke, I knew it was the truth. It resonated. Not only with me and my “dude,” but also with my friend. I could see his eyes light up with interest — not boredom.

Holy shit. I started to train away from the need to lie, and truth took its place automatically. I just needed time to figure out how to speak the truth.

It begs the question: If truth is better than lies, why bother lying?

Lying Is a Good Plan… For Now

Lying is like an emergency button. If you are out of options, sometimes you need to lie to get what you need.

If you are being held hostage, I encourage you to tell a lie to get out of that situation. I wouldn't make that a policy to live by.

If you need calories or you’ll starve, eat snickers. You shouldn’t live on snickers, though.

If you are always lying, you are telling yourself (your “dude” in my case) that you are in emergency mode. On some level, you think that you won’t be interesting or loved if you stop lying. You are working from a place of fear.

The truth is the ultimate long-term plan. If you have the reputation — with yourself and your community — that you tell the truth no matter what, you have the ultimate gift: Trust.

Trust Changed My Life

I got a lot closer with that friend when I started to only tell the truth when I could. That friendship continues to be an endless resource of positive interactions in my life.

But that was only the beginning.

When I spoke to anyone now, I knew in my heart that I was going to do my best to tell the truth. People can sense that. They are so much more willing to trust me I can’t even believe it.

Not long after this happened, I stumbled across this paper that showed how trust was the ultimate natural resource. Countries poor in natural resources — like Japan — nevertheless remain rich if they have lots of trust.

Trust makes countries rich — and it makes people rich, too.

My life has gotten richer in friendships, love, and family ties — all because I stopped lying.

Lying is subtle and sneaky. You’re telling yourself that you’re not enough — that the truth isn’t enough.

It is. Trust the truth. It actually sets you free.

Stay in touch.

(This is where you get first dibs and deeper dives.)