Maintaining Trust: Importance of Telling the Truth

Have you ever wondered if lying is right or wrong? Have you ever lied and been tricked into telling the truth? Most people have been tricked by pretty much everyone. Lying according to research is always wrong. Most people feel guilty about lying and almost everyone has to tell the truth eventually. In this essay we will try to answer the following question: why is it important to tell the truth?

Let’s give an example. You want to play basketball, but it is raining outside and you forget not to bounce the ball inside our house and you break your mom’s favorite dish. Lie or Truth? If you lie you tell your mom nothing happened, hide to dish and ball, and replace the dish with a different one. If you tell the truth you tell your mom what happened and apologize. Now you can go outside and play basketball since it has stopped raining. If you have told a lie your mom asks you what happened. Truth or lie? Lie. I didn’t hear anything bad happen.

Mom finds the pieces and grounds you for two days for two lies and now the sun is out but you cannot go outside. Have I proved that telling lies is wrong and that telling the truth is better? If you are not convinced remember the boy who cried wolf and what the wise old villager said to the boy. “No one can believe a liar; even when he is telling the truth.” 

Lying can also make bad situations worse. For example, You lie that you did your homework when you didn’t and fail the test at school. Lying also means you can’t be trusted anymore. Everyone would be isolated from others because you couldn’t trust anyone. Remember Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote: “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” Another meaningful quote from Mark Twain: “If you they’ll the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” Other people might think that lying isn’t always wrong and that it is unavoidable. According to research in many books, the unavoidable part is half right half wrong. This is true because you sometimes cannot control yourself to lie, but other times you choose to lie so you get don’t face consequences.

The lying part is fully wrong because why hurt someone’s feelings with a lie. They can be very hurt by your words and feel bad about themselves if they don’t find out they have been told a lie. If they find out you told a lie they might think that they are unworthy of the truth and they are badly treated. They also see the damage that has been done to them.