Lies and Those Who Live By Them

I have trust issues. I won’t try to pretend that I don’t.

I’ve known three pathological liars in my life; probably more, but these I was close to. One was a high school friend, another was a relative, and the third was a boss I had for a period of time.

It usually takes a while to figure them out, but once you do it’s impossible from that time forward to believe a word they say. It’s a sickness for sure. But since I don’t play the blame game I believe that they are responsible for what they do. They can seek help. If they don’t know they lie, then it’s really serious.

The high school friend and I would often experience things that most teenagers do. I was often surprised to find that what I witnessed happening on our escapades was much more boring (but real) than what happened according to her. Things that we did were embellished beyond recognition. And if that weren’t enough, there were additions that never happened.

Sometimes I thought I had Alzheimer’s (not exactly that because I’m not sure it was a diagnosis in the late 70s, but maybe I just lost my memory). It wasn’t too long before I got tired of it and moved on with my life and left the lies behind.

About the relative, I better not go into too much detail about him. I realize that posting on the Internet is offering my words to millions if they were to find them. And since others in the family wish to keep what he does secret, it’s best for me to not post it on my blog. It’s their sickness, not mine. I have discussed it plenty and still do — I just don’t want to open a can of worms with the family.

And for the third of the liars I’ve known well: this one really takes the cake. It took me a while to figure out her lies. But from the moment I got it, things were never the same. She would show up late for work and say she had car trouble. Twice the same exact thing happened to her vehicle when she was in Texas and could not get home as planned to return to work.

She would lie about one employee to another in order to turn us against one another. Instead of working as a team, we were always at odds with one another.

One of the biggest lies and something that we laugh about to this day was when she said the reason the police from a neighboring jurisdiction came to see her at work was because she’d turned in a supposed drug house, meth lab or something, and they needed her to sign some paperwork.

The truth of the matter was, she had hot check charges and they were there about that. Once she was no longer with the company we continued to get numerous calls from those who held bad checks and were trying to locate her for payment.

Often I’d hear her phone conversation where she’d ask people on the other end of the phone if they could loan her money to pay the electric bill (or some other bill) as it had been shut off. She’d then fly out of the office telling us that her child was sick. This happened numerous times as well.

I learned long ago never to lie about something and use an illness or a child in the lie. Once, at another job, I needed a day off. I said I had a stomach virus. I was really rarely sick. So I had that Friday off. The problem was the very next Friday I had a stomach virus. It was so weird, that I will never use a lie to get a sick day at work. I may say I don’t feel well … but I’ll never give a specific diagnosis. I do believe in mental health days, especially for those who are rarely sick.

If you’re one of those people who lie and think you’re getting away with it, think again. We know your lies. It never takes that long to figure them out. Children may not get it while they’re young, but the day they do, your lies won’t work with them anymore.

And besides that, when you lie continually nobody believes a darn thing you say anymore even when you do tell the truth.

If you see yourself in the people I have just written about, please get help. Your lies damage all of your relationships, especially those closest to you. If you have children, you are teaching them not to trust. I can tell you from experience that having trust issues as an adult is a very difficult thing.

No Excuses

“There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one, and you’re living. You do the other, and you may be walking around but you’re dead as a beaver hat.”
—Marion “John” Wayne

We have many opportunities in life to do the right thing or to do what we know is wrong. When we choose to do something that we know we should not do there are usually ways we can justify our actions.

Excuses and blame are easy to think of such as: I didn’t mean to; it just happened; it was her fault; I was just living in the moment; it was the alcohol; I didn’t plan it this way; and so on. And while there are times that we do things that we know we shouldn’t there is always the opportunity to stop moving forward with our mistake.

Just because we don’t see consequences of bad behavior today, it doesn’t mean there won’t be any or that when there are consequences we will know about them. Any time we are involved in behavior that could harm another person we need to step back and stop what we are doing.

Life offers us many temptations. We may feel justified in doing wrong because we are lonely, depressed, poor, or otherwise downtrodden. But doing wrong has no real excuses, at least not the kinds that absolve us of guilt.

Walking down the path of wrong will never bring us long-term fulfillment or happiness. It probably will cause us harm and hurt others too. It is our decision to do right or wrong, but excuses to justify do little if anything to right a wrong.

You can decide at any moment to stop a wrongdoing in process.

Sense of Self

“Part of having a strong sense of self is to be accountable for one’s actions. No matter how much we explore motives or lack of motives, we are what we do.”
—Janet Geringer Woititz

Excuses and blame are often what we use to explain away our indiscretions. However, when we know who we are and choose our actions well we most often do the right thing and when we don’t we are able to say so.

It’s really not possible to live our lives making decisions and taking action out of a place of good judgment if we haven’t first learned who we are, how we operate, and why we do things we do. When we have learned these things about ourselves, and only then, are we able to control our behaviors and stop the patterns of failures.

It sounds simpler than it is. Most of us who are recovering from various things need at least a little help. Often it takes many hours in therapy to learn these things about ourselves. When we know what makes us tick we can better control things that are ours to control and not try to control those things we can’t.

In addition, we are able to set boundaries with others when we know what our boundaries are. We know when to say no and when to say yes. We know which behaviors from others we cannot tolerate and are able to say so when they occur. We are accountable for ourselves and we don’t place blame on anyone or anything unless there really is a reason.

Getting to really know ourselves can be painful at times. There may be things that happened to us in our childhood that spun us into some negative behaviors as adults. But to continue to blame adult behaviors on childhood events is not how we learn better behavior. We can work through our issues and come out stronger on the other side.

None of us is perfect, and nobody reaches that status, but growth comes with work and life runs more smoothly.

Get to know what makes you tick and you’ll find ways to do things differently that have been problems in your life.

Recognizing Gifts

“With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”
—Wayne Dyer

We learn from mistakes, pain, and heartache, at least we should learn from these things. In the book, “Quiet Strength,” by Tony Dungy, he writes about a son he and his wife, Lauren, adopted who cannot feel physical pain. Someone with this affliction never learns to not eat something right out of the oven, or even not to touch the hot oven again, but for most of us, we learn this lesson early on.

There are those who have suffered severe injuries which cause physical disabilities, yet those people rather than feeling sorry for themselves go on to achieve great things. A person with a missing leg uses a prosthetic leg and runs marathons, or plays wheelchair basketball. Someone born without vision becomes a great musician. The list could go on and on.

And so it is with life issues including those that begin with our family of origin. For positive people who insist on growth rather than blame, the bad things that happened to us as children are just incentive to be better people. It is a gift if we choose for it to be. And if we choose to live in blame we will continue to live under the oppression that was placed up on us in our younger days.

We ought to each take what we are given and use it for good and not lament that which we do not have or which was taken from us too soon. Each day of life is a gift and ought to be treated as such. It is our choice and making the right decision on which side to look at will make or break our lives.

Choosing to learn rather than wallow in pain is always the best option.

It’s An Inside Issue

“Wherever you go, there you are.”
—Earnie Larsen

Wouldn’t it be great if we could walk away from our troubles? We could leave a job because we don’t like our boss, but the next one may be worse. We might get a divorce or leave a relationship because “they” don’t do things the way we want. But is our happiness or distress really caused by others or is it something inside of us? Is it our behaviors that get us into the messy relationships and situations?

Most likely it’s a combination of things. And we ought to look at what is the common denominator in our life. It is us. We can’t always fix a problem if the other person won’t do their share, but we can always work on our own issues. Geographical changes rarely fix our problems.

There’s an amazing thing that happens when we pray for others. When in a situation with someone that causes us stress and problems the first thing we should do is pray for the other person. Pray for them to have peace, joy, love, whatever good we can think of. If they get those things, don’t worry, we aren’t going to miss out on the same good stuff.
Next we can pray for ourselves. Prayer can calm many storms, both internal and external, and it can help us keep ourselves out of further arguments and misunderstandings.

Thinking that the world is against us and all of our problems are because of “them” is not a solution. Looking within at the one thing that we are responsible for will help us. Trying to constantly escape our self is not a solution because we are still there.

Look within and solve your own problems because you can’t escape yourself.

Maybe the Problem’s Not Them

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.”
—J. Michael Straczynski

Anytime we find ourselves having to learn a lesson again and again it may be time to stop blaming people and events outside of ourselves.

If we’ve failed at numerous relationships and the same problems crop up in each, we are attracting something to ourselves that doesn’t work for us. If we don’t change, the same problems will continue to come our way.

And if our problems involve work or business and we keep having the same issues that cause us unnecessary stress and agony, who needs to change? We have some reason to keep getting in these situations or not getting out of them soon enough.

We can stay stuck in our ruts of destruction that end with self-pity and loss of enthusiasm or we can look inside ourselves and learn why we keep getting into the same situations again and again. Only we can break our own cycle of destructiveness.

The first thing we have to do is admit that it is our problem and that we are the only person who can get us out of it. Blaming the boss, parents, exes, current spouses, or anyone else is not going to get us moving and out of the situation. Once we can admit that we have to do something, we can then take action and get unstuck and hopefully not have to keep repeating the lesson because we can’t seem to get it.

Look inside to find the problem and the strength to overcome it.

Taking Care of My Side of the Street

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
—Albert Ellis

Taking responsibility for our self, our accomplishments as well as our failures, is important for recovery and spiritual growth. We will never grow and evolve when we continue to blame our mistakes or misfortunes on something or someone.

No matter what happened to us in our lives, and truly we do have bad things happen, it is still our responsibility to take care of our self. As long as we use the excuse that they made us do something, we give up all of our power to that person or thing.

Excuses keep us locked in our misfortunes, not in our accomplishments and future goals and endeavors. Owning our power to take care of ourselves and our lives gives us strength to move forward. We really can do it. We don’t have to lay the blame elsewhere anymore. We are moving forward, but only when we stop giving others our power.

We won’t move forward until we know that we are able to, and we won’t know we are capable of standing on our own two feet if we continue to attribute events, either good or bad, to others. We can take care of ourselves. We can grow and mature. We will when we start taking responsibility for ourselves and stop waiting on other people to do for us.

Once determined to stand strong there’s no turning back.

Blame Will Get Us Nowhere but Stuck

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
—Dr. Robert Anthony

Every one of us can find things in our lives that aren’t quite how we want them to be and we can always find someone to blame. We can blame our parents, siblings, boss, friends, lovers, the government, and anyone else around that we can push off our problems on.

A popular saying, and one that’s also the title of a book is, “If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.” It’s always something; life is full of problems and solutions. And while blaming others takes a load off of us temporarily it also keeps us stuck in the problem and not looking for a solution.

Recognizing the origin of our issues and problems is a good start at healing. We can resolve some of our issues by accepting that things were done to us that were not always in our best interest or healthy for us. Sometimes we find that we blame ourselves for something someone else did.

For instance, we may have never felt loved by a parent and turned that blame around on us, only to figure out that we could not have caused them not to love us. That was their issue; ours is to move on and love ourselves. This blame of ourselves for things that we didn’t do is not healthy either.

We can move past blaming ourselves and others when we are ready to face our issues. This is when we can change and grow past blaming and into freedom and healing. We take responsibility for what we do, right or wrong or somewhere in between, but we move past blame into solutions.

Blame only keeps us stuck in the problem.