Why do people lie?

If there was only one answer to the title of today's column and someone could determine it, then the problem could be fixed and the discoverer of the answer would become a very wealthy person in the process. Unfortunately, there isn't just one answer. In fact, there are a multitude of answers and I want to address just a few of them here.

There seem to be three answers that emerge much more often than others. We lie to embellish ourselves or things we have done, or we lie to cover up things we don't want other people to know, or we make promises we don't keep.

We humans, at our basest level, actually aren't very nice. We tend to be selfish, often putting our own needs in front of anyone else's. We tend to think in superior terms, believing that we are better than others. We are prone to gossip, spreading rumors and outright lies about others to make our own selves look better. We are often judgmental, talking about and putting down other people for doing the same things we have done or, just as often, doing things worse than the people we're judging. We tend to be prejudiced and even hateful towards those who don't think like we think, look like we look, dress like we dress, or believe like we believe. We are likely to be materialistic, placing more value on things than on people and relationships. We are often more jealous of our friend's success than we are happy for them and, finally, we tend not to really care about anyone else's problems but our own.

So, the fact that we lie shouldn't be very shocking, when you look at all the other imperfections we embrace and dispense on a regular basis. But it is disheartening.

We all know people who lie to embellish their lives. This kind of lying is born out of a deep-seated feeling of insecurity or low self-esteem that requires them to either pretend to be someone they're not or to take one or two accomplishments in an over-all unaccomplished life and speak of hardly anything else but that. These are the kinds of people who have told the lie for so long that they actually begin to believe it themselves and, although hearing the lies over and over again can eventually get on our nerves, the only one really hurt by this kind of lie is the person telling the lie to begin with.

The second kind of lie, lying to cover up things we don't want other people to know, can be much more nefarious because it leads people to believe things that just aren't true. If a person lies about his or her credentials, for example, that could lead to that person securing a position they're not qualified to hold which could ultimately affect a great deal of people in a negative way. Or a person expressing love and devotion and fidelity to another person forever when they know they really don't mean as they're saying it. Or to lie to friends and family about not doing something when they know they are doing it.

This kind of lie is not told to embolden a person to others as the first kind of lie is. This kind of lie is told to deceive, cover up and hide the truth at any cost, so that the person can have their cake and eat it too as the others are taken in and convinced by the lies they're being told.

The final kind of lie is a lie that may not look like a lie at first blush but it is, and it is, in fact, the most damaging kind of lie of all. When we make promises we don't keep, it's a lie. When we don't do the things we said we would do, even if we don't promise, it's the same kind of lie. Because it IS a promise whether we say it is or not. If you borrow something from me and tell me you'll have it back to me within a week and you don't, you have both lied to me AND broken your promise. You can't say, "Well, I didn't PROMISE I would have it back to you in a week." Yes you did promise. When you tell me you will do something, it's a promise, whether you use the word "promise" or not. This is not only the most damaging kind of lie but also potentially the most harmful because we sometimes base our happiness, our future, our very existence on the words that others say to us. When they don't follow through, we are sometimes damaged beyond repair and find it impossible to believe anyone ever again.

If we have any redeeming qualities at all in our selfish little minds, we should only make promises we know we can keep and tell people only those things we know we can live up to.