by Pierrette Komarek

Created on: November 14, 2008   Last Updated: July 23, 2011

Although in french they say:" Toutes les verites ne sont pas toujours bonnes a dire" (It is not every truth that is worth retelling) it's like everything else in life..a matter of commonsense! If one of your friend comes by and she happens to look terrible, it would hardly pay you or your friendship to say "Gee honey, you look like hell!". Even with the best of intentions, sometimes we ought to refrain to tell someone something that is patently obvious: like, they keep a sloppy house and you don't really enjoy visiting them, or they talk without stopping and this gets tiresome after a while. There are many small and big annoyances that we must daily deal- with diplomacy -and with those around us..at least if we care about the relationships.

It has been wisely said that: "To be a slave to one's self is the heaviest of all servitude's" ...and that's what lying does to a person. It just piles things on, till the liar forgets what is the truth is; For the beauty of being truthful is that you never have to remember what you said before..and it goes without saying the the Liar is always found out in the end! Just as the person who is truthful is always believed!

On the other hand, having personally experienced this, I know that some people simply get pleasure out of lying!; and they will do it, even when it is not necessary! It's like any other vices..sometimes as bad as the alcoholic who must drink to satisfy a

his cravings! Liars crave their falsehoods, for I think it makes them feel important. It also sometimes hide small and big actions that then do not have to be explained! How sad!, but the worse results is surely that after a while, everyone gets to know this, and the Liar is no longer believed, even when they tell the truth, and that is their ultimate punishment!

When I was young and worked in my parents Cafe', back in Algiers, No. Africa, I remember my folks saying on occasion:" If we told all we knew -we would make the mountains fight! "... A french expression hard to translate..for it is that in a bar, under the influence of alcohol, men's tongues will loosen up and they'll tell many stories, especially about others infidelity's (their favorites)... that would have been better kept to themselves. And indeed had my parents repeated them, half of our customers would have wound up in the divorce courts! This I learned from them... And as I was raising my own family, I was most always truthful with them, just as I instinctively knew when the kids were telling me fibs! And now on occasion they still do it, most always to spare my feelings, but I love them for this. And therein lies the difference. There are lies and LIES..sometimes they are told out of love for the other person. Now those are the ones I don't mind. Heck -I even tell'em my self on occasion!

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