Do you remember this proverb, "Honesty is the best policy" - it is a touchy subject that we were taught dauntingly as youngsters and as we grew up,is became a taken for granted characteristic, we imagined ourselves to just be! It is true until ofcourse you on the bearer end of dishonesty that the thought occurs to you, "How much of what we do hear is actually true and not made up?" It is often hurting to be in the company of dishonesty and while trying to be polite in not rocking the morality boat, at some point we need to be truthful to ourselves. Do we really want to be known as someone whose words can never be trusted or be on the receiving end of a lie? If we were all honest and lived in a perfect world, then court-rooms, police departments and psychiatrists would suffer a great deal.
So in understanding the concept of lies to rectify it, we need to be open to where it comes from. As I read in an article which said the following, " To gain complete honesty, it is important to let go of all your fears and defense mechanisms. You need to learn how to explicitly express yourself to another person. Complete and total honesty allows you to share you innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires. To reach the point of this honesty it is important to face your emotional grief that resulted in your defense mechanisms and fears. No matter where your pain came from, whether it is from childhood or adulthood, it is going to keep following you and bringing up hurtful feelings until you face it. When you confront your feelings without hiding from them, it helps you overcome and recover from them." it dawned on me that it might not be that someone intends to lie but it might that they are covering up for something that they just cannot express or fear.
While dishonesty is bad, it is equally important to understand that sometimes people do not mean to be dishonest, they actually are protecting themselves. While giving them the benefit of the doubt, it is also important to create an environment (a safe one) that allows them to let go of their insecurities, open up and let go so as to free up the lies.
And I am not saying that dishonesty or lies is acceptable, I am saying it can be rectified if we care enough.:)