My World With Words

When I was in second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Smith, told us a story one day about always telling the truth. I don’t recall much about what she said, except this: she claimed her son, Tim, age 17, always told the truth. She caught him in a lie when he was three, had a good long talk with him, and he never lied to her again.

Yeah, right. Even at the tender age of seven, I and the vast majority of my classmates were skeptical. I’m not sure what that said about us. Maybe that we’d all lied to our parents more than once and no talking-to was likely to stop us from doing it again.

That story apparently stayed with us, for one day when poor Tim showed up to drop off something for his mother we all pounced. Most of us just cried out something like, “you’re Tim?” but the braver souls demanded to know if he ever lied to his mother. Mrs. Smith reigned us in pretty quickly, and just as quickly Tim disappeared.

I’m sure Mrs. Smith intended to help keep us from lying, but that’s a difficult task for parents, let alone teachers. As I grew older I learned my mom and dad had discovered I was a pretty good liar, while my sister was not. I took no pride in that and vowed to change my ways, but I think it took awhile.

As adults, our lies can get bigger and the consequences worse. Most of us know this and steer toward truth-telling. I know I try to, although I may have challenged the concept of a “little white lie” on more than one occasion. Still, I think I’m an honest person for the vast majority of the time.

Okay, I may tell you my cats are the best cats in the world. Obviously, that’s impossible to measure and is entirely subjective, so I guess it’s not really a lie, it’s more like hyperbole.

I work with a woman I call a storyteller. The first few of her stories I took at face value, but the longer we worked together the more I realized they were blatant falsehoods. I just smile now when she gets going with her tales and say things like, “Really? That’s unbelievable.” I don’t think she catches my meaning. The thing is, when it comes to our work, I believe she’s honest. So her stories don’t really bother me.

Lies from politicians do bother me, starting with those told on the campaign trail. I’m holding my breath about some things some politicos said when they were trying to win an election, knowing these people have proven that their words are untrustworthy. Some campaign promises are so bizarre, or so expensive, that I question why anyone would believe them. But people do.

I once discovered, on a previous job, that a co-worker lied to a group of us about the work we were doing, and lied to others to cover up what he was telling us. That did not sit well with us when we found out about it. His lies led us down the wrong path and we looked bad. Turns out our manager had figured out what he was up to, but we had no idea. I would have liked it if she sat us down and went over it, but maybe that’s expecting too much.

The best any of us can do is vow to be honest with each other and trust that that catches on in the world around us. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the caring thing.

Image Credits: Pinocchio nose © Vadym; Children © Rymma; Cats © LadadikArt–all, stock.adobe.com