BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Liars and happiness

Barbara...What a terrible dilemma.....

I am of the deeply rooted (and confirmed) opinion that when we fabricate our own present, through what we do, it has consequences. Both for ourselves, naturally, but also for others.
I sense that what you are doing - with regard to your own 'self-protection' is absolutely spot-on.

But like you, I feel for the children, and I too, right off the top of my head, wouldn't quite know how to tackle this.
Unfortunately, the answer more often than not, is that we can do nothing unless we're directly involved. "Interference", even with the very best of intentions, is not always as constructive as one would hope.....

I have found in my own situations, that it doesn't do any good to talk to them until they express a frustration that is somehow related. They won't hear... they can't hear, until they are motivated to hear, and they won't be motivated until they want something, and that's when you can suggest that correcting their behavior will lead them to what they want now.

This may not be the best example, because it started years ago, but I have a friend who is a generous and dear person in most every way, but the year i met her i noticed that sometimes she would make "innocent" lies and much worse... have her son lie for her, if for example, she didn't want to come to the door rather than have him just say that politely, she'd have him say something false, like she wasn't at home. Now, years later, her son lies to her, and she doesn't understand where he got it from. At some point she may express her unhappiness at his lying, and then, if i'm gentle and phrase it without making her feel bad, then i might be able to get through to her that she has to teach her son by following a no-lie policy herself.

But the manipulation style of lying that you mentioned is more serious... and is it just me or does it seem like more people do that now than there used to be? Have we gotten more ME-ME-ME as a society?

Maybe it's an epidemic of narcissism and sociopathology?

Most of the people lie without feeling any guilt.

A friend of mine said they recently were having a conversation with someone from South America, and she was describing something and suddenly he said, "Ahhh.... the American Cult of the Individual." It was kind of funny, but also a little sad that in many places of the world they see us as selfish.

If they have no conscience they do not care that they are hurting people by lying so yes they can be happy.