Lying can be an art form. To be good at it takes real skill. It requires you to have full control over your body language and be able to deliberately moderate your tone. You need to say the right words in the right order and have a great memory. After all, you need to be able to keep track of what lies you’ve told. You can’t care about the impact your lies have on someone else either.
If you care too much you can’t lie well. Your body bleeds out signals. You’re racked with guilt. You stutter over your words and your tone rises or becomes defensive. The ability to detach from your conscience therefore, is definitely a prerequisite to good lying.
Some serial cheaters are great liars. They have mastered the art. They know how to make the listener doubt what they know. They’re great at twisting the other person’s words. They’re willing to go to great lengths to ensure their cheating ways aren’t discovered.
Lying to get the outcome you want means you have to bypass the other person’s feelings. If you were to see your behaviour from the other person’s point of view, that would require empathy. But people who are truly empathic struggle with big lies. Little white lies? Sure. Lies to cover up the reason why you’re late to work, why not? What about lying about enjoying a meal or certain company? Yes, that can be arranged.
But what about the big lies, the lies that require earth-shattering deceit and devastation in the life of another? That takes a certain type of persona. You have to be so good at lying that your forget you’re lying. You have to be able to justify your actions to yourself no matter what.
A willingness to be in total denial about what your doing and why you’re doing it, really helps. If you don’t tell the whole truth about what you’re actually doing, then it doesn’t seem so bad. Because when we face up to the truth of our unloving actions, we naturally feel remorse. Remorse requires a change in behaviour. It requires admitting to your tendencies and propensities.
To be a great liar then, is to have an immature persona that can happily lie to itself. For a mature persona has the ability to self-reflect and feel remorse. The mature persona values self development and personal growth. It wants to see itself change for the better over time.
Even though it requires definite skills to be the king or queen of liars, that skill isn’t really a desirable one. It’s a skill that deliberately stunts personal development and growth. But hey, who cares about all that inconsequential stuff? Well it’s not great liars that’s for sure.
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This story has been republished to Medium.
Photo credit: iStock
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