I had a friend in university who was a compulsive liar. By far the worst I’ve ever met. He had the most RIDICULOUS stories ever imaginable. I can’t even begin to describe the ridiculousness if I tried. I will try anyway…
Ok so there was this one about this cop who would get him cocaine. Super cop crosses the borders with a trunk full of the stuff. And the cop would give him as much of it as he wanted free of charge. The cop would also kill people for him. And make hookers have sex with him and his friends. And so on. You get the point. I’m still not even a sliver close to the ridiculousness of this cop story. It’s way better x10000. I cannot even go there, it’s way too elite for me. Sorry, I tried.
He had a million of these stories. They were never ending. Everybody knew he was full of shit. He’d look you right in the eye and just spew verbal diarrhea. He was a likable guy, and people liked him nonetheless. He built a reputation for being the nice guy who bullshitted everything. When he wasn’t around we’d swap stories on what lies he told for the day. It was entertaining and always good for a laugh. I wish tumblr was around back in the day, because the stories would make a great tumblr blog. The crazy thing is, I believe he actually believed his stories.
Most people lie. It’s the degree of lying that’s different. Telling the truth all of the time is actually kind of awkward. See http://www.esquire.com/features/honesty0707, it’s an article about “Radical Honesty”, which is about telling the truth all of the time.
The worst kind of lie is the kind that hurts others. This could be a lie that gets somebody beat up, arrested, financially destroyed, or some other awful thing. The next worst are the ones you tell yourself.
The ones you tell yourself are often subtle. They start off innocent enough. “I don’t have time to do…”, “I can’t do that because…”, “It’s not my fault because…”. These lies start to accumulate. A white lie here. A tiny lie there. Sooner or later, the lines start to blur. You are not sure what is real anymore. And then you turn into my college buddy with the super cop friend.
In other words, you start to fool yourself and become delusional. The lies you tell yourself start to become the lies you believe. So much so that you start telling them to others, as if they were true. Your friends believe them, until they don’t. Until you’ve tricked them enough times that they simply don’t believe anything you say anymore. They no longer believe your bullshit, even if you still do. See “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.
People who are full of shit, don’t always know they are full of shit. It starts small. It starts innocent. Now the lies have taken over their life. This isn’t some Breaking Bad TV episode. This is the real deal. Do you consider yourself an honest person? Read Dan Ariely’s “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”, it’s awesome. You’ll find some really interesting insights about human behaviour and honesty in that one. All I’ll say is that maybe you aren’t as honest as you think you are. Maybe you fudge the truth ever so slightly and convince yourself it’s the right thing to do just so it fits in your current reality. I know for certain I’m probably not as honest as I think I am. I just pray I know the difference between the bullshit I tell myself and the bullshit I tell myself that I actually believe. If not, hopefully the lies are good.