The One Person I Lie To

I've written posts about lying (Lies. and Lying). In both posts, I admonish lying. And I still do admonish lying. Don't lie, it doesn't work, you can always use your words in a truthful way to achieve anything, in no situation is lying to your advantage, at least that's what I've seen and learned, and life has definitely been better when I don't lie.

However, there is one person I do lie to. One person that I pull some dirty moves on sometimes. I bully this person with my lies, promising him things I never give, bribing him with things, and never giving them to him. This person is myself.

When I'm out for a run and my lungs feel like they're going to collapse I tell myself, "I'll stop at that mailbox." I don't stop at the mailbox. When I'm taking a cold shower, sometimes I tell myself, "After I finish washing my hair, I'll turn it up." I don't turn it up. Things like that are situations in which I lie to myself.

As you can see then, I'm using lies in order to keep myself going. I tell myself, "I'll stop when..." Just so I keep going for a bit longer. And there's a story from Dare To Do Motivation on Youtube which describes the Buddha and his traveling companion Ananda. They are on the way to a village and they are tired. They meet an old man and he says, "oh, only two more miles, only two more miles." The Buddha smiles at the man and the man smiles back, then Buddha and Ananda go two more miles when they meet a woman, only two more miles, only two more miles." The Buddha and the woman smile at each other and this happens once more before Ananda asks, "why do you keep smiling at these people?" The Buddha responds to Ananda, "because we are in the same business. We are both trying to push people. I've been to this town many times, and I knew it wasn't two more miles, however, because they said that we kept pushing forward." Source (much better than how I put it).

I think this is the only case in which it's alright to lie. I lie to myself, to push myself forward, even if it's just a little bit. Don't lie to other people, however, you have a pass to lie to yourself, not for the negative, but to push yourself forward, just two more miles.