Lying

 “It wasn’t me!”

Three familiar words, most often used in response to the dreaded question: “Who did it?”

I wasn’t the kind of kid to lie about breaking a plate, though I may or may not have subtly tried many times to shift some blame onto my siblings. No, I was the kind of kid to lock myself in the bathroom and read a book instead of doing my homework (“my stomach hurts!”), or sneak out into the living room to play a couple of rounds of Duck Life on the family computer (“I was just getting water from the kitchen”), or stay up late staring at comics under the covers (*snore*).

Contrary to the large number of times I’d sneak off and do something I wasn’t supposed to do,  I really, really hated getting caught. When the inevitable happened and my parents found me still up at 12 AM on a school night engrossed in Harry Potter, I never confessed to my misdeeds, even when it was glaringly obvious. Instead, my first instinct was to clam up. My second instinct, as you might be able to guess, was to lie.

For me, lying was a way to get out of trouble and not have to admit to my misdeeds. It was a way to avoid or cope with the guilt and the consequences that came hand-in-hand with whatever act I committed. 

Many times, lying is a way of pushing the blame off of yourself. Everyone makes mistakes -- it’s just owning up to them that’s the difficult part. Taking responsibility for your wrongdoings is hard, though even worse is being accused of something you didn’t do. I have a horribly vivid memory of my third-grade self getting screamed at by my teacher for cheating when the real reason I walked over to my friend’s desk during the test was because I wanted to ask her whether I could use her headphones. In hindsight my actions looked really suspicious (really, really suspicious) and even if I’d tried to explain myself, I don’t think my teacher would have believed me. I don’t blame her -- the evidence against me was strong and she was likely more inclined to believe that I was lying.

There it is again -- lying. Interestingly, though lying is often used as a way to relieve guilt, the act of lying itself can cause the very guilt it should alleviate. Essentially what’s happening is that you end up trying to use a wrong to hide a wrong, creating an even bigger problem. 

Oftentimes lying can feel like the easiest way out of a situation you don’t want to be in. But the “easiest” way out isn’t always the best way out -- two wrongs don’t make a right. Owning up to your mistakes is important and it shows that you take responsibility for your own actions instead of blaming it on something or someone else. 

I still struggle with this sometimes, because admitting that you made a mistake can be scary and I don’t want to face the problem that I created. It’s so much easier to blame things on circumstance or on other people. But I know that in the long run, lying isn’t the way to go, whether it be for the situation or even for my own conscience. So, in my quest to better myself, the next time I cause an accident, you bet I will strive to answer “whodunnit” with “me,” even if it’s with a bit of hesitation.