Ben Pechey
- Apr 5, 2019
- 3 min read

I cannot lie

Hello, hi and greetings to you dear reader. Welcome to honesty month on benpechey.com. Fresh on the heels of New Month, all April long I will be franker and even more honest with you.

This month of posts stems from conversations I have with other people about the value of honesty, and why it is so important to me. Thus, Honesty Month was born.

Today to kick things off I want to talk about the opposite of honesty, lying.

Being completely honest - see what I did there - I really cannot lie. This is not me saying that I can, but I don’t like it. No, seriously I cannot lie, I am blessed/cursed with a face that registers only my true emotions.

If you ask me how I feel, I am usually unable to hide the truth. If you ask me if I like something, and I don’t, I will have to tell you. If something or someone is annoying me, they will probably know. You can see that being unable to lie can make life an exercise in walking on eggshells.

Obviously, there are some life situations that being able to lie is an advantage. For example, I will never be a champion poker player, an undercover police officer, a crappy used car salesperson or be able to write ‘news’ for the Sun. However, on the whole, I really cherish my inability to lie.

My honesty is tied into my conscience, and thus I would consider myself a good person. I was buying milk the other day, and there was a pound left in the self serve till, I handed that to the store. It never for a minute crossed my mind to keep it. Mainly as feel l that the karmic balance of the world would be thrown off against me.

I am a big believer that what we get out of life is directly affected by what we put into it. Thus honesty is a good characteristic to hold dear, as I hope it would encourage those who interact with me to be as honest.

I doubt as I sit here writing this, that many of you are serial lie artists- I wouldn’t believe it of you. However, being more honest in life means that we allow ourselves to deeply investigate our stance on life. If I know I cannot hide how I feel, but know that it might hurt someone else, I simply don’t say anything at all.

It seems that by knowing I cannot conceal emotions, I feel the need to adjust my behaviour. Can you imagine if people in this world were that considerate? Yet a large chunk of people are just lying to our faces. Sometimes the truth can be hard to hear, I really struggle with it. However, if you have always been lied to, the day you receive the truth will be a very hard day.

I do think that if the world promoted honesty, in a considerate manner, that we would live in a more pleasant world. All our interactions would be open and beneficial, ensuring all parties were happy they had aired their true emotions.