When Is It (or is it ever) Okay To Lie?

I saw this question on Plinky a few months ago and immediately I thought, it’s never okay to lie, but is that the truth? Is honesty always the best policy? I was reading a couple of blog posts on honesty and perjury and the majority of people who commented agreed that honesty is the best policy and under no circumstance would they tell a lie.

Uh huh. I’ll tell you why I don’t believe this and I think people lie more often than they are willing to admit or even realize.

In the book The Day America Told the Truth, by James Patterson and Peter Kim it stated that “91 percent of Americans lie regularly. The majority of us find it hard to get through a week without lying and one in five can’t make it through a single day without bending the truth.”

Ninety-one percent! I don’t find that statistic surprising at all. It’s not always easy to know how one will react when the pressure is on.  We lie to be polite, we lie to impress, we lie to avoid punishment, we lie to flatter, but not all lies are meant to be harmful. I believe people lie more often than they realize because white lies, i.e. the Stork, Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, etc. are socially acceptable, whereas bald-faced lies¹ are not. White lies may appear to be harmless, but they are still lies, right?

Then there’s the lie by omission, we only tell half the truth. We omit certain facts, details or information leading someone to believe one thing when we know another to be true. Lying, even on a small scale, seems unavoidable.

We lie to our friends, we lie to strangers, we lie to our employer, we lie to ourselves and what did surprise me during my research for this post is that the majority of people we lie to are the ones we love the most.  That’s sad, but I understand why that may be true.

I’m no beacon of truth, just in case you’re wondering. I have told lies I’m not particularly proud of, but I still consider myself a trustworthy person.  Is it possible to be 100% honest all of the time, I say no, but there are ways to tactfully tell the truth, and without hurting someone’s feelings.  I travel on this road as often as possible.  While I don’t believe that most people are practice liars, I do believe a majority of people engage in some type of lying, daily, unless you happen to be George Costanza, then it’s not a lie if you believe it.

Is lying is the social lubricant that sustains a civil society or does “lying corrode trust and intimacy—the glue of a civil society?”²

Your thoughts?

1. or bold/bare faced lies [↩]
2. Livescience.com [↩]

I am conductor, hear me cook

Ever look at someone and wonder how they got that particular job? A job that’s not exactly advertised in the paper, but somehow they got word of it and get paid to do it. I’m sure some of my co-workers wonder the same thing about me, but this isn’t about me, it’s about Vanna White, but not limited to. I guess with Vanna, it’s not so much how she got the job, but why she still has her job.

The Wheel of Fortune we see today is not like the Wheel of Fortune of old when Vanna actually had to turn the square to reveal a letter. Now it’s computerized and we all know her job can be done electronically. To me, her job is the equivalent to when a contestant knows the puzzle, but they buy a vowel anyway. I don’t get it, but no hate here Vanna. It’s honest work and your job is not the only one I used to question.  Here’s two more:

Ramp Agent. That’s the person on the ground at the airport responsible for guiding the pilots with hand signals or orange flashlight wands into position next to the gate. Now if I’m the pilot, I’m thinking: I just flew an aircraft across the country, landed safely and there is someone on the ground the size of an ant signaling to me where and how to park my plane? Move out of the way, I got this, but that was before I actually searched a ramp agent’s duties. They do more than guide planes into parking spaces, but also perform a variety of maintenance activities. Who knew?

Conductor of an Orchestra. He doesn’t even have an instrument, but a stick. Actually it’s a baton, but stick is funnier. I used to look at the conductor and think, you have got to be kidding me.  He’s playing an “instrument” that doesn’t even make a sound.  That was before I knew his job was more than just waving a stick, but he has to:

• be intimately familiar with all of the musical pieces selected;
• encourage musicians to play louder or softer;
• be involved in the creative and business decisions long before the performance; and
• know precisely when each instrument enters the musical highway.

Thank you wisegeek.com

After reading the duties of a conductor, surprisingly, I felt a kinship. One of my favorite activities is cooking, and not your everyday cooking, but dinner parties. When I’m in the kitchen preparing meals for a large group, I feel like a conductor directing an orchestra of foods because:

• I too have to be intimately familiar with all of the foods I’m preparing;
• I have to encourage the food to cook faster or slower;
• I have to be involved in the creative decisions regarding the background music and selecting the right blend of guests attending; and
• I have to know precisely when each food has to enter the culinary highway to arrive on the table, hot, and at the same time.

Besides my attempts at humor, it’s one of the few times when I’m in a zone and I feel “on.”  Now, when I watch a conductor, I see myself standing in the middle of the kitchen, with my utensils raised, and I totally get it.

When are you on and what’s your talent when you are just doing the darn thing?

Note to Vanna: I owe you an apology. You obviously do more than I realized on Wheel of Fortune.  Who knew that you would:

• be intimately familiar with all of the puzzles selected;
• encourage contestants to buy a vowel when the puzzle is only missing vowels; and
• be involved in the creative and business decisions long before the show.

__ __M       S__R R Y      V__N N__      W__L L     Y__ __

__ V__R      F__R G__V__      M__?

Wheel of Fortune picture by Wikipedia
Ramp Agent photo by Hawkeye
Conductor photo by Dugway

Should You Care What Other People Think?

Who's pulling your strings or controlling your life?

Do you care what other people think about you? I asked a few people this question and they said they don’t care what other people think. Well actually they said they don’t give a rat’s *** what people think, but I was putting it nicely.

Sometimes it seems like the attitude today, and not just from the younger generation, is: I’ll do what I please and if you don’t like it, then you can shove it. Some people like to believe that they live in their own world and nothing they do affects anyone. There is more concern about self and less concern about others.

Then there are the people pleasers who spend too much time caring what others think about them. They don’t live their life based on their thoughts, but on the opinions and approval of others. They thrive and need acceptance from others to feel validated as a person. I was reading something that said this need is like a drug, “it’s so addictive that most people will not give it up – they will keep looking for approval because the hit is so intense.”

“The price of the approval drug is freedom – the freedom to be ourselves.”

Personally I don’t care what others think about me, most of the time people get it wrong anyway, but I do care how I am perceived. That means I’m okay with being weird (or being different) I can contently dance to the beat of my own drum, but if someone thinks I’m a horrible person, then we need to talk. I do care about my character, who I am as a person.

My question to you is: Where, and how, do you draw the line on how much influence and control you give other people. The comment section is open for your participation.

Michael Miles, the author of Thirty Days to Change Your Life, for Free said that we should “live our life by means of a set of values – not values imposed from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective purposeful and happy life.”

Photo by starpixie on Flickr

You’re So Vain You Probably Think This Post Is About You

Many years ago when I was much younger and could stay up late, I had a night time ritual. Every night before I went to bed, I would watch at least an hour of stand-up comedy on television.

I studied comedians, got to know some of them by face and many of them by name.  One night there was this new comedian performing, I don’t remember his name,¹ but I remember a portion of his act.

He joked about how everyone was always in a panic to be first. First in line to get the latest gadget. First in line at the bank. First in line at the grocery store.  He said: You know what? I don’t wanna be first, I wanna be next!²

Even though it was meant as a joke, I’ve never forgotten it and consider it one of my life lessons.  It made me wonder why we make everything, simple things, a competition to be first? I don’t know, maybe we are inherently competitive and can’t help ourselves?

There’s a guy named Greg Packer who makes a “hobby out of attending public appearances and is known for being first in line for such occasions. He is even credited with being first in line to purchase an iPhone in 2007, 110 hours before it went on sale.” Why?

I guess we love being first.  We get the attention, the bragging rights and let’s face it, sometimes it feels good being on top, but sometimes it’s an exhausting race to nowhere.

“Does being first really have the upper hand over being second or even fifth? Not necessarily.  Sometimes getting the formula right matters more than doing it first.” ³

I’m learning to be content with next.

1. sorry I’m old now [↩]
2. Awh come on, that’s funny [↩]
3. Quote from Ben Tracy [↩]

Being Human In the Age of the Electronic Mob

“Has the Internet seduced us into thinking that we can in fact live in a world without other flesh and blood people, we can just deal with screen people.” Paul Comrie-Thomson

Photo @ illuminati-news.com

The other day I was talking with a friend who commented on how the use of the Internet has made people so impersonal that it’s taking the place of human interaction.

She said that “people are missing out on real pivotal moments in life because they are too plugged in, always stuck in front of the computer.”

After I got off the phone, I called at least 3 people to say hi, not that I don’t call them anyway, but I’m technology dependent, and sending an email hello is “normal”, preferred really.

Instead of picking up the phone to emotionally connect with someone and listening to their voice, phone calls have been replaced by text messaging, emails or tweets.  Technology has made it so that we don’t have to deal with humans if we don’t want to.

A few weeks ago, we had dinner with an elderly family friend, she has to be at least 89 years old, visiting from Virginia.

She passed out her calling card printed with her name, address and phone number on it.  After examining the card for a few seconds and looking on the back side, I said: “Where’s your email address, how am I supposed to contact you?”  She said, “Use the phone number.” ¹  Sometimes a phone call is better because we get to hear emotions and true feelings that we would not get in an email or text message.

I love the Internet, its usefulness, its convenience but life is not the sum of conveniences. In fact, it would probably be less convenient, but it might also be more meaningful, especially when we examine the social and psychological dislocations that it’s caused. ²

How do you stay “human” when technology makes it so easy for us to be emotionally detached.  Does time spent online outweigh the time spent interacting with family and friends?  Has technology affected our thinking and way of life that it is fast becoming, not our servant, but our master?

Additional Reading:
Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob

1.   I hate the phone [↩]
2. social isolation [↩]