Truth, lies and effects

Through this article I want to show how lying actually does more harm to us than any good.The examples I am going to give are mostly found among to be used by youth between age of 18 to 23. I have lied many times untill I understood the harm they have done to me. Through this article it is my honest attempt to stop those whom I can from lying.

For students, lies can be broadly classified into

1] Lies to Parents
2] Lies to Teachers
3] Lies to Friends

Lets take the first point - Lies to Parents. Before that, I am sure that all of you will agree that the only goal of the student is to get educated and get as good results as the student can in examinations. The examples can be many but most common ones are (the ones I am guilty of)

1] Monetary lies to get more pocket money for various expenses

I used to live as a hostelite during my engineering days. As with most of the hostelites, my parents used to send me some money reularly for the living expenses. It was enough for accommodation, travel, food and miscelleneous expenses for education and entertainment. Somehow, I needed more money to cover some expenses which I could not tell my parents about. They were actually bad habits. I justified such action to myself thinking that my parents will feel bad and get angry. Living away from them gave me the liberty as far as time is concerned and by lying to them about the expenses, I was able to get money to indulge in so called 'cool' things. What I failed to realise at that time was that such acts will harm me in the long term in many ways. Not only they harm my health, I get habituated to it and then spend lot of time on it. Time vital for my studies which I could have used to get ahead in competition, score good marks and finally get a good job after I finished engineering. To be successful one needs to be strong and focussed on the job at hand. By lying, I actually harmed myself and my prospects in the future. It made me lie more (next examples)

2] Reasons for scoring less marks which actually is a direct effect of example 1.

The typical reasons that I used to give were sickness, power cuts, headaches etc. I failed once and I used sickness as the reason for it, but the reason was something else. I was not courageous to tell the truth. Again I failed to realise that this was the chance god had given me to correct my mistakes and if I told truth now, though my parents would get angry, I would get rid of the real reasons of my failure and I will get more focussed for producing good results. By lying now, I hid all my mistakes and though I got more careful about my studies, I still used to waste time in the similar activities. I did pass but not with good marks. Had I told my parents the entire truth, it would have given me strength to get rid of those activities and focus only on studies.

Second Point - Lies to Teachers I dont think I need to tell any of you about this as this is very common. We lie when we are late for lectures (train was late, bus was late, too much traffic, punctured tyre etc.) Well I dont say that it was not true all the times, but most of the times it was. We wanted to get away from the immediate reprimand, but we didnt think of the larger affect it would have on us.I remember an incident in first year of engineering. I liked Mechanical Engineering and I used to attend all the lectures of the subject. Once I was late for the lecture and I gave a similar reason. The truth was that I went to a late night movie and then got up late in the morning. Incidentally, the lecturer had seen us there and he knew the reason why I was late. He told the class the reason I was late but let me sit in the lecture. Later on he told me that he allowed me to sit as it was an important topic. When it came to submission of assignments, we again had a range of reasons of not completing them on time. We didn't care to submit the assignments on time and then on the last dates we used to ask for extension. These were the times for internal vivas and since we were not able to study for them, we used to lose marks and more importantly, we lose a chance of gaining knowledge which harms us even more in the longer run. The point I want to make is that lying to teachers might get us out of the immediate reprimand, but it makes our job difficult in the long term. A simple truth here would have given us strength to rectify ourselves. It would have given us the thirst for more knowledge and strength to finish the assignments before time and ask the teachers for improvements, or try some extra curricular activities.

Third Point - Lies to friends This I feel is the main reason for lies we tell in points 1 & 2.

We lie to friends about our social status, girlfriends, financial status, habits etc. And to give credibility to ourselves in our friends eyes, we indulge in all the things which make us lie to our parents and teachers. Lies to friends is primary reason why students pick up bad habits and in some extreme cases, it makes us steal. Obviously this is not what we came to learn.

The main point of the article that I want to make is that truth gives us strength and lies make us weak. In short term, lies might look like a tool to get away from an immediate reprimand, but we do not realise the harm it does to us in long term.

Lies might appear to do good, the good they do is temporary, but the evil they do is permanent.