Sweet Lies - Are you still falling for it or have you noticed the difference now?

One day I was thinking about truth and how important this is in any human life. In business this is often underappreciated or ignored but I noticed when an individual or an organization is missing this component, that's when we really suffer.

Let's admit it. We all have lied to a certain degree. We even named it so we can get justified like white lie. We did it for the others. That's our justification. And I realized that we don't have to white lie all the time. And to do that the easiest and the quickest way is to become someone who believes in what you say and you tell the truth. Period. But why won't most people follow up with this or get scared of telling the truth?

And I realized it's because we care about what other people say. How they view us. Opinions of others dictate our life more than we think. Not just the way we think but the way we believe and even the choices we make, we let that power us. We basically constantly give away our power to other people for sake of being liked or being popular sort to speak.

Also another thing I noticed that when we get too focused on an end goal we become more vulnerable to scams or to believe in what's not true. And the interesting thing here is that there is usually a signal. But because we are so caught up in getting what we want, we tend to not notice or ignore the signal and end up getting lied to, deceived, or falsely believe and fall for it. So I realized, in order to see things clearly, it is useful to practice detachment when it comes to important decision. We want something so badly that we get blinded and miss the important piece of information or get the tendency to only see what we want to see (because we want to believe that's true) and not the whole thing.

Why would we do that? Why would we sacrifice so much of it and be unhappy? Then I thought about relationships. How many people fall for sweetness especially in relationships and later feel betrayed, angry at the other person for making them believe that lie and waste their time and heart. They are angry, sad and disappointed because they are hurt. They feel like they lost that part of ability to trust, love and be happy. This sense of loss really cripples us deeply.

But when you actually think about it, it's nothing that they did but you CHOSE to believe that lie. We all have this need to feel significant, to feel connected, to feel certain, to feel unique, to feel appreciated. And when someone feeds our ego with showers of compliments and sweet words, we tend to fall for it. Most people are always hungry for it. And the truth is it is not that act of compliments or that sharing of kind words. It's always the intention of the person who is giving it. It comes from a place of self-interest. It is all very self-oriented. Which then only becomes a strategy, a tactic. But the funny thing is these people who are doing it also don't wanted to be treated the way they treat others. How twisted and selfish is that! Right?

So what I realized is that we cannot change everyone, you cannot control all the circumstances from happening and what we need to do is we need to be more educated. That some people will lie no matter what. They will confuse us too at times. And they won't reveal their true colors for a long time.

How can we noticed the difference? I learned that we don't want to lose the ability to be trusting. Which means we do not want to be defensive just because there are people who are trying to harm us for their own interest. But rather the more we have trusting abilities, trusting in ourselves, trusting the goodness, we can more easily spot the wrong. For example, someone always says they are there for you and how they are they are for you. They constantly verbalize it, trying to advertise themselves and get credit for it. If you are a person of helping people, you will notice more easily. You are not helping people or being loyal to get noticed. It is just how you are. That's your value. And you don't seek or need entitlement for it. This person has his or her own interest in mind. Another example would be, a man says he loves you deeply. But when you try to be in contact with him, he always says he is busy with this and that and demands your understanding all the time. If you love someone deeply what would you do? If you want something so badly then what would you do? Would you delay it? Would you put it aside so other things can come first?

I know that there are con artists and constant deceivers and people seemingly nice but are not. And it's hard to tell the difference form the beginning. When it comes to trust, one thing I realized is that anything of value needs to be earned. It's not that you don't want to trust others, you now understand you don't just give away your trust to anyone easily. Because people who value trust also understands that it's something that they need to earn and they won't as easily or quickly demand it or expect it from you. You see what you are. When you are a person of value, has more self trust, sound characters, you will notice anything that's not more easily.

Are you being honest with yourself? Are you being honest with others? Do you practice being truthful to yourself as well as others? Do you want instant gratification? Where are areas you tend to slip when it comes to trusting others?