I’ve only recently come to appreciate how much I deceive others. Not often in what say, but what I don’t say. And I don’t think of this as lying, for some reason. Having moved to a culture where people lie all the time and don’t seem to think it means anything, I’ve come to view white lies as something I don’t want.

If there is a situation in which I feel I shouldn’t tell the truth, I think the answer is to tactfully tell the truth. And get myself out of situations where I am compelled to lie. Part of that means not letting my parents (who lie all the time!) tell me what I should do. That sounds strange at the moment, but here is an example. At the moment I am missing work to help my Dad with something, and yes, I am technically ill, but not too ill to come to work. And he sees nothing wrong in telling me to lie so I can help him.

One thing I need help with is deciding whether adopting different personas should constitute lying. Around argumentative people I will often not say what I think because I know it will get us nowhere, for example. Hmm….