Right Speech Reflection

I unfortunately, yet undoubtedly deviate from the truth in my speech. I used “wrong speech,” from white lies to flat out bold lies, multiple times this past weekend. I find myself lying to people who wouldn’t even be offended by the truth. I told an old friend from CBC that I wasn’t doing anything because I was grounded when in actuality I was out with some new SLUH friends. Like many Friday nights, I told my parents I was going out, and when they asked me what I was doing I replied that I simply didn’t know, which I hoped would buy me some time to come up with an excuse to what I was actually doing. I find myself lying to my parents a lot, about things they wouldn’t even really care about. The lies don’t just stop with the parents, I also find myself lying to friends, but I find those friends lying right back to me. On Friday night my friend and I called another friend and asked what he was doing. He quickly replied I’m at Pau…(whispers in background) I’m in my living room. I can’t stand when this happens.


The Truth is really important to me, when I’m the one being told the truth, but I find myself not even considering what comes out of my mouth. It has become much easier to lie than to tell the truth. Thomas Jefferson once said, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual. I think maybe I lie to protect myself. I tell people what they want to hear, and I lie about myself to make myself sound better. I wouldn’t consider myself a compulsive liar but in situations where I’m on the line, lying just seems the easiest way out. Mark Twain said, “When in doubt, tell the truth.” I wish it was this easy. I think I am much more aware of “right speech” after this experiment. It was a tad upsetting to notice how much I lied, though most of them little, they still added up. I suppose all of these years I have taken the truth for granted, but when I think about it I want to be told the truth, (most of the time that is) so shouldn’t I tell others the truth?