Now, I think you're probably pretty familiar with the concept of lying, but let's launch into a brief example, anyway.
Jill has just received the most hideous haircut on the face of this earth. Jack is her boyfriend. The following dialog ensues:
Jill: Hey, I just spent $400,000 on this haircut, and I REALLY think it was worth it! I absolutely love it! What do you think?
Jack: Actually, I think it's terrible. It kind of looks like someone placed some roadkill on your head and tried to pass it off as hair.
And, then, of course, Jill would slaughter Jack on the spot and spend the rest of her days in a dark prison cell. Plus, their relationship would be over. That would suck, wouldn't it?
If you hadn't noticed, that was a bit of an extreme example; however, basic principles still apply here. Wouldn't it have been better for Jack to have simply agreed with Jill (perhaps without her undying enthusiasm, though) and then later have suggested--quite delicately--that she try a different type of haircut? I'm not one to advocate deception, but I also think that preserving someone's feelings is important. I guess it's a tough call.
Anyway, let's move on to the subject of lying to oneself. Self-denial is probably one of my favorite forms of deception. Oftentimes, when I have some sort of huge problem, I attempt to push it from my mind and operate under the assumption that it no longer exists. What's that old adage about ignorance and bliss? I think I'd like to employ that here. I mean, honestly, you can't worry about something if you don't even acknowledge that it's a problem. And--while that might be detrimental in certain situations (i.e. ignoring the fact that you have a giant exam in two days)--isn't it better to just put your mind at ease?
Again, it probably sounds like I'm saying, "Lie to yourself and everyone around you! It's fun! It's easy! Everyone's doing it!" But, really, aren't there situations where a certain amount of deception can be beneficial? We can deceive others to spare their feelings (and to save ourselves from their wrath). We can deceive ourselves to cope with situations that might be too much for us to handle. So, isn't lying, at bottom, just a unique type of defense mechanism?
Obviously, I'm not saying, "Hey, you should go around lying all the time, and then everything will work out for you!" It won't. Still, I just can't convince myself that all forms of deception are harmful all the time.
Does that mean that I should start worrying about lying too much? Well--according to my newfound stance on self-denial--probably not.
It takes more time
Than I've ever had,
Drains the life from me,
Makes me want to forget,
As young as I was,
I felt older back then,
More disciplined,
Stronger and certain,
But I was scared to death of eternity,
I was saved by grace,
But destroyed by naivety,
So, I lied to myself,
And said it was for the best.
3 comments:
I think it's sort of a sad truth about life. I mean, the whole sparing feelings thing is usually good...and there's a line between lying and having tact when it comes to questions of appearance, etc.
As far as self-denial - sure, I do it a lot. I'm not sure at what point it gets to be unhealthy, though.
A very good topic. I've been noticing this a lot lately coming from me. It's weird, because I find myself lying about things that I really shouldn't need to or don't really need to worry about telling the truth. I think we just lie when we do instinctually, for various reasons, which is ultimately attempting to maintain social balance and harmony in our relationships. And yes- self-denial is very prevalent with me as well. I think a lot of it is putting off thinking about things that are not immediately needing of attention so that we can live our life not feeling so overwhelmed. I also think that that can be explained better and more in depth, but I'll leave that for something other than a comment.
Oh yes, this was the other post I was going to continue my other comment on. Well, I pretty much summed most of it up already; I can't exactly seem to form what else I was going to say, though.
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