Lying

 It might be the biggest pet peeve I have. I don't like lying. No, this is an understatement. I loathe lying. To think about being lied to makes my skin crawl, and I experience what I like to call preemptive anger at this hypothetical scenario. Needless to say, people who lie are ones who I consider to be crawling on the bottom of the fungal residue beneath the barrel. I remember when I was a child seeing a relative instruct her offspring to lie to their father. I was shocked to see someone so blatant about lying that they were not only encouraging others to lie, but in fact giving them tips. How can one be so deceitful? Why would one be so deceitful?

I believe the essence of lying is self-gain, be it materialistic, emotional or social. You are gaining something from keeping others in the dark. I really empathize with the person being lied to, because they just don't know any better. They are just going about their life, mistakenly thinking that everything is as usual, but then they are not.

To me, once someone lies, I can't trust them anymore. How can I know if anything you say is true? People always think "oh, it's just a white lie" or "it's just a little lie". That is how it starts. First, you lie about something really tiny, and soon you are deceiving the closest people to you. Also, it shows great disrespect. You are disrespecting other people's intelligence and their rights to react to whatever you are lying about.

Moreover, lying is contagious. If you hangout with people who lie, then eventually you will lie. The brain just wants to take the easiest, shortest route to whatever objective it needs fulfilled. So, if you see lying as a lifestyle, you will soon normalize it for yourself and it will become part of your life. It's a very slippery slope.

It's a shame, really. Also, it's lazy. I am beginning to think that most human traits that are completely disgusting are based on laziness. Go through the tough route, it's not that difficult.