Gohan blog post

Gohan

Lies and Truth: An Identity Crisis

by Gohan,May/30/2018

I was recently reminded over the last week or so of one of the ways of the world today that is interesting, but also extremely unfortunate and extremely sad. Whether you're talking about people that are local or an ocean away, there really doesn't seem to be all that much difference. People, for seemingly several reasons, do not know when they are being told the truth and when they are being lied to and often mistaken one for the other. Look no further than politics for evidence of this. Honest politicians usually don't get far and when they come out and tell the public the truth, they often get labeled as looneys, nut cases or whatever childish names adults toss around these days. When politicians lie right to the face of the public, they believe it often without question. They literally lie right to people's faces and they believe them, but ones that tell the truth are often not believed.

How did we get so far down this path? With such a serious case of identity crisis leading to an almost complete inability to tell the difference between the truth and a lie, it's amazing we ever get anything done and certainly amazing societies haven't fallen apart already.

Now, I'm no saint. I told lies as a young child just as everyone else has I'm sure, but it never got to far along. Before I turned 21, I had already realized that lying really wasn't worth it. Even if telling a lie got me what I wanted, I always felt this sinking feeling in my heart of despair and regret. Just like others seem to do, I tried to ignore it, but couldn't for long. So, my days of telling lies did not last very long. Fast forward to today and I am now a person that never lies about anything even if it makes me look stupid or less desirable to someone. If you have to lie in order to get something or someone, is it really worth having? I know a lot of people would disagree with me on that point and surely think of something that would be worth lying about, but to me, it really isn't. This is especially true with the "someone" side of that. Why would anyone want someone that would only accept them if they lied about who they were? What kind of relationship is that anyway? It's doomed to fail.. for sure and hopefully, it fails before anything like marriage occurs for your sake.

It was only after that point in my early 20's that I really started to see the effects of lying. I was lied to many times and it just reinforced my decision to change myself in this way because I was like "wow, this is what I was doing to people?" It made me even more disgusted with myself for ever thinking it was okay to do. It also really showed me the value of honesty. Even when it hurt, it always hurt less to hear the truth than to hear lies that made me feel good in the short term, but ultimately hurt more once the truth was inevitably revealed.

Therefore, it is important to be able to tell the two apart, isn't it? Due to how rare honest people are these days, it would also seem to be important to hold on to such people in some capacity when you find them. It certainly wouldn't be a good thing if you routinely confuse the truth with a lie. It's easier to lie to people who can't tell the difference. Again, look at politicians in government. They do it for a living because it works!

The great thing about always telling the truth is you don't need to have a good memory to remember all the bullshit stories you've told people. It is also a sign that someone has fully accepted themselves and are in no way ashamed of who they are and what they have become. They have nothing to hide and wouldn't waste their energy hiding it anyway.

So, with all this in mind, how does it manifest in relationships? I see patterns in life and people as I get older and one is the increasing instances of people who do not know how to trust other people. Such people are always doubting, always suspicious, always accusing and never believing anything the other is telling them. These are often people who have been hurt many times in the past and, because they have either been unable or unwilling to let all that stuff go, they bring all this baggage into their new relationship in order to foist it onto the lap of their unsuspecting partners when they least expect it and take it all out on them. All this anger, hurt and anguish is turned on an innocent person. That person could be telling them the truth, but it doesn't matter because they are acting out their pain and baggage and wouldn't be able to tell truth from lies even if they were interested in doing so.. which they usually are not.

As I see all of this, both through my own experiences and through the eyes and words of others, I also wonder if there is even any value left in being a good, honest person in a world that is made of bullshit and lies. Is there any value at all? The older I get, the more an answer eludes me. If you're the kind of person that is honest and blunt to a fault and someone doesn't believe you, what can you do? You can't be more honest than 100%, right? It's a powerless situation. Even on this site, so many people ask for "honesty" as one of the things they look for in a partner, but do they even know what honesty looks or sounds like? It seems like nothing more than a nice word to put on your profile even if a person has no idea what it means or be able to pick "honesty" out of a lineup full of lies.

Would anyone even be able to tell you were any different than a liar? If not, what's really the point in being an honest person if people hear the truth and are convinced it's a lie, but hear lies and think it's the truth? How in the hell did we get so backwards? How did we ever think this was an acceptable way to conduct our lives?

All too often, it seems honesty is considered a weakness as well. Lying and being deceitful is rewarded in this world while you're branded an enemy if you tell the truth. I guess the truth often includes things people don't want to hear or things that make folks uncomfortable, but lies often tell people exactly what they want to hear or expect to hear. Therefore, it makes them feel better to believe that instead of the truth which is a harder pill to swallow. This, to me, certainly seems like part of why this seems to happen so often these days. People will believe what makes them feel good.. even if it's all bullshit. I think people do this for so long that they just forget how to accept the truth. Believing lies feel good. They tell us what we want to hear. The truth often tells us what we don't want to hear. So, it's easy to see why people are more likely to look upon lies favorably while looking down on the truth.

All I know is.. it is getting harder and harder to see the value in being honest. That is not to say that I am considering a renaissance back to my foolish teen years because I could never go back to that even if I wanted to, but when the majority of people in the world seem to love lies (truth) and hate truth (lies), it sure can be demoralizing and difficult especially when it's a relationship where you're having to shoulder 200 pounds of baggage that has absolutely nothing to do with you. What's a person to do?

Is it any wonder honesty is falling out of favor? It doesn't pay to be honest. Women fall for lies constantly, so what's the point in being honest when lying gets you what you want? Men fall for lies constantly especially from physically attractive women, so why would women stop lying to men if it gets them what they want? Why should politicians stop lying to the public if the public constantly hears those lies and thinks they are the truth?

I think what more people need to realize is that everyone is different. Just because you have people in your past that did you wrong doesn't mean everyone is out to get you. Everyone has people like that in your past. The problem is when you don't leave them there and decide to bring all that shit into your new relationships. People always say they want someone nice, honest and caring which are certainly desirable traits in any potential mate. The problem is those people don't even recognize when such a person comes into their life because they are too busy living in those painful relationships of the past to notice. They haven't let go of those painful memories and probably have no business involving anyone else in their life until they have let go of those things.

So, the nice, honest and caring person that has come into their lives is seen as the mean liar who hurt them so bad in the past and they are going to pay for what they did to you! So, you don't get the people you want because you can't let go of the past long enough to see when such a person has come into your life.

If you can't let go of the past, it is impossible to move forward. If you can't tell the difference between a good, honest person and a bad, lying person, then what's the point in asking for the former if you think everyone is the latter because you can't let go of the pain of the past? Good people are ruined by these things. Even good people have limits and can be pushed too far. It becomes harder and harder for me personally to let people into my heart and my life because there always seems to be some kind of baggage or trust issues they are bringing with them from past traumas and I just can't deal with it anymore. I can't imagine why anyone would want to.

I guess what I'm saying is people should get over their past before they try to move into the future. People you interact with and get into relationships with deserve better than that and quite frankly, so do you. We've all been hurt in the past, sometimes very badly, but we have to find a way to let all that go and be ready to look at the next person we meet as a completely seperate person from all that. Keep your guard up, sure, but don't jump to conclusions and let someone show you who they are and judge them by their own merits and not by the merits of those in the shadows of our past. Those people are gone and probably for good reason.

No one, and I mean no one, has the right to hurt you after they are gone. The only way they can do that is if you let them by holding on to all that shit and letting it influence you everywhere you go and with everyone you meet. I got news for you; when you do that, you are letting those people WIN. They are beating you and not only are they beating you, but you are letting them hurt OTHER (innocent) PEOPLE through you. At that point, aren't you sort of becoming like them? You're doing to others what they did to you. You are making others feel the same way those people made you feel. You ARE them.

LET. IT. GO. Move on. Do not subject others to your inner desires to "fix" all that pain by unleashing it on people that had nothing to do with it. It's bullshit, people! Whether you are making friends, looking for relationships, online, offline, in your country, in another country, in a spaceship (rarely happens) or whatever or wherever you are, think before you leap. A new relationship or friendship is a new beginning. Use it to your advantage. Living in the past will ensure that the same things keep happening to you. Don't do that to yourself and don't do it to others. Everyone deserves to be happy and that begins with letting go of your past. Accept it, it's done, it can't be changed. The future can be different, but only if you want it to be and only if you allow it to be. :)

-Mike

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