You lie to keep yourself protected

BVS Saket

Grade 10, Delhi Private School, Sharjah

Nobody would shout or yell at a new born for crying. If a toddler broke an expensive vase, the parents would be upset but they wouldn’t shout at the toddler because obviously the child wouldn’t understand the reason for his parents anger, and the parents wouldn’t want the child to start crying.

But let’s say the vase was broken by a 9-year-old. The parents would probably lash out at him making him develop a fear of ever breaking anything again, and if he were unfortunate enough to break something again, he would probably resort to lying about who did it to prevent himself from getting yelled at again.

A wise man once said, ‘The truth is cruel’. Then the opposite must be true as well, that is, lies must be a form of kindness. Humans, being social animals, want to maintain connections with their friends which they do by refraining from being mean and lying to their friends, in order to be kind.

Students will often lie to their parents about their test scores or would even lie about receiving their test scores in the first place. They do this, so that they won’t get yelled at, hence being ‘kind’ to themselves. Employees lie to their employers about why they were late to work as they don’t want to get scolded or lose their job.

All of this shows that people lie only to protect something, be it themselves from getting scolded at, or their friendships with others, or their job.

But a really young child would never find the need to lie as they don’t know about their social heritage and about what it means to be scolded and hence do not have have anything to protect.

This is why, I believe, all people are born honest, but life makes them liars.

If I were to create an emoji, it would be...
A ‘mic drop’ as it is hard to win an argument over anybody and what better way to declare your victory in that hard-fought battle than a mic drop.