Believing Your Own Lies

We all know that there are people who lie. But there are also people who lie to themselves and who seem to believe themselves.

Are people actually able to convince themselves of their own lies?

Do some people really talk themselves into believing their imaginary stories? Do they even realise anymore that they are lying?

This is a phenomenon that I could often observe with regard to certain people. A person that called me a few days ago told me about what a colleague of hers has done and that she thinks it is terrible. What is remarkable is that this person had done the same thing in an even worse extent over a long period of time. I didn’t know what to say. After all, she should have known I remember what she had done, so normally she wouldn’t mention similar behaviours of others in order to not draw attention to it. The only explanation is that she decided to pretend it never happened and not just in front of others but for herself.

It seems to me that some people actually succeed in talking themselves into believing that their own false behaviour never happened. It is astonishing what humans are capable of. I was aware of the fact that this person tells a lot of lies and tries to convince others of them but so far I have never realised she does actually believe them herself. This does explain some things, it makes me understand things I have never understood before.

What I am not sure about though is whether this is a sign of some serious mental disorder or whether we all do that to a certain extent.

I think sometimes people try to repress bad memories, which is perfectly understandable in some cases. However, is it still normal to behave like any false behaviour on your side  has never existed and to actually believe it?

What is even more extreme is that there are people who build up a whole world of lies. In school, one of my friends told me about a classmate that had made up his own successful band, lots of friends and a girlfriend and that he openly talked about them all the time and that apparently he told everyone how popular, rich and good-looking they all were, in addition to a lot of other rather unbelievable stories. I believe that you shouldn’t judge someone without even knowing him, so I told my friend that it might indeed be only due to unfavourable circumstances that no one had ever seen these friends, band, or girlfriend. However, I got to meet that person and at some point it became impossible to deny that something was obviously wrong with his stories (this is an understatement). No one was sure whether he believed in his own lies. In my opinion, at some point he had started to believe that his stories were true.
He has built up his own imaginary world. 

Sometimes we talk ourselves into believing certain things because we want them to be true.

Some children even have imaginary friends and you wouldn’t consider that as lying.

But where is the cross point between lying and having your own view of the world? If you believe your own lies, are you telling the truth? There is this quote that I mentioned in a post in the beginning of my blogging days: Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Don’t we all have our own views and opinions about who we are and how the world looks like? And if we don’t actively think about it, we think that this is how the world actually looks like. But what if it does in fact look completely different for everyone else? And I am sure it does.

So do we actually all live in our own imaginary world?

Quote of the week #5

There is beauty in truth, even if it's painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don't teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one's character, one's mind, one's heart or one's soul.

José N. Harris

What is it that we are all lying, all the time? I don’t want to make an exception for myself here, all I say is that I am trying to avoid lies, but I am sure I have lied many times in my life, as we all have.  

It seems as if people want to be lied to, they enjoy the lies, it seems to me as if there was an unspoken agreement that says we should lie whenever it is possible.

We lie all the time, regardless of what we are talking about. We even lie to ourselves and sometimes we even believe these lies. It seems as if a lie becomes the truth, once it is told often enough.

I sincerely try to tell the truth, or rather I tell what I think to be the truth, as no one can ever be sure what the truth is. However, I have made the experience that the truth is not what people want to hear. Nonetheless, I believe in being honest, it is of value for me.

I really don’t want to say that I am better than anyone, I am not, but this is my point of view and I believe in it. I trust everyone until there is a reason that proves this person should not be trusted, I believe in the good in people and I believe that people tell me the truth, because I would tell them the truth, especially when it comes to friends. Maybe I am naïve, but then be it so. However, once I know about people telling me significant lies, it is hard for me to forgive, it is hard for me to trust them ever again. Honesty and confidence in someone belong together, I trust because I have faith in my friends, but once the honesty is lost, the faith is lost, too.

What is the point of inventing great stories about something that could be told in one little candid sentence? I understand that people do lie sometimes in order to not hurt someone. But if we are totally honest, most of the lies we tell are told because it’s easier than telling the truth, because it seems to be more comforting to ourselves.

First, there are those lies we all agree upon. It’s when someone asks you how you are and you tell him you are fine. You meet people in the street you have not seen for many years, you are both busy and you both agree silently that you do not want to hear of all the problems of the other person.

Then there are the big lies, lies that are told because it is easier to tell them, because we just don’t want to tell the truth, lies told in order to intentionally deceive someone. Lies that we tell because we want to appear better, greater, more successful than we are.  Those are the lies some people even seem to believe for themselves. Besides, there are also lies that are created to make people believe in something that doesn’t exist and the creator knows about their falseness but tells them anyway, lies that are told in order to achieve something, lies that can even be told to a whole state.

Finally, there are even false statements that are told for no apparent reason. They are absolutely unnecessary and they are the reason making me believe that we are all just big liars, that we enjoy the untruth. Why do we tell these lies? Is it because we are afraid of being hurt if we were totally honest? Do we even recognize anymore that we are being dishonest? Is there really an unspoken agreement in not telling the truth? Why can’t we all try to be honest?