Every time habitual liars tell a lie, they lie twice, the one they said to the others and the one they believe
The ethical nature of lying is not the subject of this article; rather, this article is about the steps taken once you’ve hurdled your personal moral, faith, or trust issues with lying, and have made a decision to go ahead and lie. Lies may come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes have an embarrassment of reasons behind them, from avoiding personal harm, wishing to avoid hurting someone or to protect them, to actively seeking to get some form of gain from someone (material, social, or emotional. Some people lie habitually to make themselves appear better than they are, thinking that telling an untruth will shine a more positive light upon them. Others attempt to lie strategically when they think it will benefit them, bring some advantage or get them ahead. Lying means you’ve already crossed any moral or ethical hurdles, and justified to yourself that the lie in question is now a necessity.
A poor liar often trips up through continuing to struggle with the morality or faith issues behind the decision to lie. Regardless of the reasons, if you want to lie successfully, you need to reach a place of internal equilibrium where the lie is adequately justified in your own mind. Many of us are not aware of all the lies that liars tell. Lying is almost always devastating. It hurts the person who is doing the lying, as well as the person being lied to. Sadly, it is all too common in most of our lives. Many of us are not aware of all the lies we tell. Still another person might lie all the time, afraid of other people finding out the truth about them. This develops a habit that continually drives someone to keep telling more and more lies like Sara’s friend who damaged her willingness to trust anyone. Lying is despised because it has a tendency to hurt, cause disruption, and comes with major costs sometimes including loss of social or financial status. And lying violates trust at both personal and societal levels, when most of us would still like to keep striving toward being able to trust one another. Yet, it is arguable that sometimes a lie has a place, to protect a reputation, to prevent hurt to someone else, to ease tension and so on, but it will always depend on the context and extent of the lie, as well as the legality/morality of what is being lied about. Lying now and then is a personal decision. liars can be found in type of the society, the politicians, business man and ordinary people in the society.
However, be realistic with yourself; using lies to avoid responsibility every time something goes wrong in your life can lead to compulsive lying and inability to tell the difference between the need for honesty and the need for safety – a state of mind that can ruin your life. Under what circumstances are you willing to risk damaging relationships, reputation and future opportunities and those intend to lie should consider the probability of being detected before launching into your lie, ask yourself what the chances are of being caught. Although lie is unethical, however, some people, come up with a lot of reasons to lie, but there are even stronger reasons to tell the truth always. Lying destroys relationships. Any time we lie and our intent is to deceive another, we are wandering away from truth and into troubled waters. Deception sets up an unstable relationship prone to upset and decay. An old proverb by Sir Walter Scott states it well, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Deceivers often then find themselves having to construct a second, what has happened to telling the truth? Have deceit, spin and misleading statements become commonplace in your communication? Lying destabilizes relationships between people and gives an unsure foundation that is difficult to build upon. By lying, we harm not just ourselves, but all those around us as well. We are to speak truth because it is good for everyone. Truth-telling builds relationships—and eventually a society of stability, confidence and trust. While many people no longer hold truthfulness as an important value, it is our duty to personally practice it. Being a truth-teller must be part of our quest to become perfect just as our Father in heaven is perfect. Truthfulness is a value that we should strive to make a part of our character.Your lie may because you stress, guilt, or make you feel like a bad person. Keep this in mind and remember that it will always be in the back of your mind. It may weigh you down. Although, there are various types of lies, however few examples taken as consideration are the following:
1. The Occasional Liar – These people seldom lie. But when they do they are blown away by their actions and feel guilty for what they have done. These types of people are the ones who are quick to seek forgiveness from the person their lied to.
2. The Smooth Liar – The smooth liar is just what their description sounds like—this person has become very smooth and skilled at telling lies. There are those that say they can pick out a liar every time, but that’s not necessarily so when it comes to the smooth liar. This liar is so good with words and body language people tend to believe him even when they know he has a reputation of being a liar.
3. The Compulsive Liar – This person lies when they don’t have to, even if telling the truth makes more sense than the lies they tell. These people have an addiction to lying, and they simply cannot stop. They are out of control. They spend hours studying situations trying to come up with more lies that will allow them to maintain all their previous lies. These people are totally untrustworthy and end up unable to keep friends.
4. Error a lie by mistake. The person believes they are being truthful, but what they are saying is not true.
5. Omission – leaving out relevant information. Easier and least risky. It doesn’t involve inventing any stories. It is passive deception and less guilt is involved.
6. Restructuring distorting the context. Saying something in sarcasm, changing the characters, or the altering the scene.
7. Denial refusing to acknowledge a truth. The extent of denial can be quite large—they may be lying only to you just this one time or they may be lying to themselves.
8. Minimization reducing the effects of a mistake, a fault, or a judgment call.
9. Broken promises: Broken promises are a failure to keep one’s spoken commitment or promise. Broken promises can be especially damaging when the person who made the promise had no intentions whatsoever of keeping their word to begin with.
10. Fabrication: Fabrication is telling others something you don’t know for sure is true. Fabrications are extremely hurtful because they lead to rumours that can damage someone else’s reputation. Spreading rumours is not only a lie but is also stealing another’s reputation.
11. Bold faced lie: A bold-faced lie is telling something that everyone knows is a lie. It’s simple and sometimes cute for a little child to tell a bold-faced lie about not eating any cookies, even though there’s chocolate all over his or her face. As we get older, we try to be cleverer with our cover-ups. Some people never grow up and deal with their bold-faced lying even though others know what they’re saying is completely false. When people hear a bold-faced lie they are resentful that the liar would be so belittling of their time and intelligence.
12. Exaggeration: Exaggeration is enhancing a truth by adding lies to it. The person who exaggerates usually mixes truths and untruths to make they look impressive to others. An exaggerator can weave truth and lies together causing confusion even to the liar. After awhile the exaggerator begins to believe his or her exaggeration.
13. Deception: A deceiver tries to create an impression that causes others to be misled, by not telling all the facts, or creating a false impression.
14. Bad faith. bad faith is lying to one self Specifically, it is failing to acknowledge one’s own ability to act and determine one’s possibilities, falling back on the determinations of the various historical and current tantalisations which have produced one as if they relieved one of one’s freedom to do so.
15. Big lie. A lie which attempts to trick the victim into believing something major which will likely be contradicted by some information the victim already possesses, or by their common sense. When the lie is of sufficient magnitude it may succeed, due to the victim’s reluctance to believe that an untruth on such a grand scale would indeed be concocted.
16. Bluffing. To bluff is to pretend to have a capability or intention one does not actually possess. Bluffing is an act of deception that is rarely seen as immoral when it takes place in the context of a game,
17. Bullshit.Bullshit does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication. While a lie is related by a speaker who believes what is said is false, bullshit is offered by a speaker who does not care whether what is said is true because the speaker is more concerned with giving the hearer some impression. Thus bullshit may be either true or false, but demonstrates a lack of concern for the truth which is likely to lead to falsehoods.
18. Butler lie. That describes small/innate lies which are usually sent electronically, and are used to terminate conversations or to save face . For example sending an SMS to someone reading “I have to go, the waiter is here,” when you are not at a restaurant is an example of a butler lie.
19.Contextual lie. One can state part of the truth out of context, knowing that without complete information, it gives a false impression. Likewise, one can actually state accurate facts, yet deceive with them.
20.Economical with the truth. Economy with the truth is popularly used as a euphemism for deceit, whether by volunteering false information (i.e., lying) or by deliberately holding back relevant facts. More literally, it describes a careful use of facts so as not to reveal too much information, as in “speaking carefully”.
21. Emergency lie. An emergency lie is a strategic lie told when the truth may not be told because, for example, harm to a third party would result. For example, a friend may lie to an angry husband about the whereabouts of his wife, who he believes has been unfaithful, because said husband might reasonably be expected to inflict physical injury should he encounter his wife in person. Alternatively, an emergency lie could denote a (temporary) lie told to a second person because of the presence of a third.
22. Exaggeration. An exaggeration (or hyperbole) occurs when the most fundamental aspects of a statement are true, but only to a certain degree. It is also seen as “stretching the truth” or making something appear more powerful, meaningful, or real than it actually is. Saying that someone devoured most of something when they only ate half would be considered an exaggeration.
23. Fib. A fib is a lie told with no malicious intent and little consequence. Unlike a white lie, fibs rarely include those lies or omissions that are meant to do good.
24. Half-truth .A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may employ some deceptive element.
25. Honest lie. An honest lie (or confabulation) can be identified by verbal statements or actions that inaccurately describe history, background, and present situations. There is generally no intent to misinform and the individual is unaware that their information is false.
26. Lie-to-children. A lie-to-children is a lie, often a platitude,, which may use euphemism which is told to make an adult subject acceptable to children.
27. Lying in trade. The seller of a product or service may advertise untrue facts about the product or service in order to gain sales, especially by competitive advantage. Many countries and states have enacted consumer protection laws intended to combat such fraud. An example is the holds a seller liable
28. Misleading and dissembling. A misleading statement is one where there is no outright lie, but still retains the purpose of getting someone to believe in an untruth. “Dissembling” likewise describes the presentation of facts in a way that is literally true, but intentionally misleading.
29. Noble lie. A noble lie is one that would normally cause discord if uncovered, but offers some benefit to the liar and assists in an orderly society, therefore, potentially beneficial to others. It is often told to maintain law, order and safety.
30. The Beneficial Lie is used by a person who intends to help others. for example keeping an announcement person in your house for safety reasons,.
In conclusion: Man can forget his anger, but never for his lies. Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder and once someone is a liar, he lost his reputation in the society.
Ismail Yusuf.