Liar Liar pants on fire

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I used to think that I was a pretty good liar. I mean the small ones, like telling my mum that I'd eaten when I actually hadn't or when I pretended to know someone's name during church service meetings and I had absolutely no idea who it was but didn't want them to feel embarrassed. The thing to realize is that the number of lies you tell can add up very quickly and before you even realize what's happening, you've piled up more than you expected.

Just recently, I lied to a colleague and said I could not meet with them because I had a family thing going on that day, it's Christmas season so it's easy to make that excuse but about two weeks later, she asked me how that family thing went. At that point, I was left completely speechless, I had no idea what was going on and I completely forgot what I had said to her before. When I finally managed to respond, all I could say was, it was fine, and moved on to another topic. At that moment, she looked at me as if she knew.

The real problem with lying is that you will always be responsible for keeping track of your lies. You are not only responsible for keeping track of what you said but also of when you said it, to whom it was said and the totally different versions of the same lie that you've told to other people. This can be a very exhausting task.

There are probably some people out there who feel very confident that they're going to be able to keep track of everything with their mental filing system. Possibly, for some time, they do keep track of everything. But the problem is that memory is not something that you can rely on to be a consistent and accurate means of tracking your lies. Memories come and go and change. There are times when you will forget things or mix things up. And once you get caught slipping up on one of your lies, the next thing you know, people are starting to second guess every other lie you've told them.

I am not saying I'm now perfect at telling the truth, nor am I claiming that I don't tell lies anymore. I still lie occasionally, but I now know just how awful I am at telling lies. I do believe that knowing this has made me a much better and more honest person overall.