(Disclaimer: this began as a light hearted vent that ends with a sincere point. Bear with me. Sometimes the road to truth isn't always straight.)
Earlier this week an associate told me a lie. It was a stupid, unnecessary lie but a lie nonetheless. Didn't call her on it 'cause it would have probably have led to more stupid and unnecessary lies. So all I did was remind myself why this chick was JUST an associate and not a friend and file this away in the "take what that child says with a grain of salt" folder and keep it moving.
Now, I fully realize that EVERYBODY including myself lies about something or another. It DOESN'T HAVE to be one of an earth shattering nature but possible one of ommission, of the white variety or for some other well-meaning reason ...like you don't want to tell your girlfriend her butt really is too wide to still wear those pants. Still a lie though, right?
But I hadn't had my coffee yet, someone had parked in my usual space and I couldn't find my favorite pen (and it was only 3 in the morning)so I was already irritated PLUS this past year I have had first hand knowledge of how hurtful lies and deception can be.
Then comes this idiot .....
The headline:
A MAN LIES ABOUT BEING KIDNAPPED AS AN EXCUSE FOR CRASHING HIS WIFE'S CAR ON THE WAY TO A CASINO
I immediately thought about the Runaway Bride and how much I detest how the fake victims are ALWAYS white folks who ALWAYS blame the kidnappings on imaginary people of color.
The list would be too long to list but here are some links.
Susan Smith ... remember her? Even Oprah went down to South Carolina to help catch the Negro she said had killed her kids. Then there was Charles Stuart. He killed his wife while driving through a housing project and blamed it on a black man damn near inciting a race riot in Boston. Lifetime made a movie about it.
But this latest headline is different because, this time, the person BEHIND the fake story is Hispanic!!! But, yeah, he still blamed the kidnapping on Hispanic guys.
He's 35-year-old Jorge Alberto Mejia of San Rafael, California (--in the Bay Area). Earlier this week, he was driving his wife's new 2007 Ford Focus to the River Rock Casino in Geyserville, California when he accidentally CRASHED.
He knew his wife would freak out on him for crashing her new car, so he came up with THIS: Two men carjacked him, and told him to drive to an isolated area in Santa Rosa, California.
But Jorge had the presence of mind to slam the car into a wall, stunning the kidnappers and allowing him to escape.
Jorge described the fake kidnappers in INTRICATE detail: One was a clean-shaven Latino, about 25 years old and 5-foot-10, who spoke Spanish, was wearing a gray hooded Nike sweatshirt and had several tattoos on his left arm.
The other was a thin, clean-shaven Latino about 18 years old and 5-foot-4, wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt with a multicolored design on the back, and with two teardrop tattoos under his left eye.
He filed a police report but after a very minimal amount of work, the cops realized Jorge was lying, and they confronted him. He admitted to making the whole thing up; and now, he could be charged for making a false report. AND his wife is even more pissed than if he had just come home and said he had an accident.
Go figure.
But the article nagged at me for the rest of the day. And a little light flickered inside.
Those who tell little and supposedly well meaning lies are some of the biggest forms of ENERGY SAPPERS. Yep. Energy Sappers - that's what Oprah calls the people who can suck the life out of you in seconds.
Because when people lie to you ... on some level you have to participate in the lie and often make the lie your own and carry it around like a 200 pound monkey on your back.
And when you're the one telling the lie ... the weight of the monkey doubles.
Then the lies are no longer little or well-meaning.
Iyanla Vanzant wrote in an article "that the biggest way to block your blessings is to be untruthful with yourself and others" while Maya Angelou encourages us to "take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and the ones that have been told to you".
There comes a time when we have to pause to sort through the lies that we are telling ourselves ...
"I'm so stupid."
"I'm broke."
"I don't know how."
"I can't take it anymore."
"I'm ugly."
AND the lies that others have told us ...
"You're no good."
"You can't do it."
"You'll never make it."
"How do you think you're gonna do that."
Teacher Charles Hanel wrote that "the only way to eradicate a lie is with the truth. We must not only speak the truth, we must think in truth. The truth is, we start from a place where success is born, in the mind's eye of the Most High. The truth is that no one has ever made a true deal with the Master and lost."
Whoever said that the truth hurts forgot to add that lies hurt more.
Now, how do we find our truth?
That's PART TWO. :)
Sistah,
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct that the lies people tell burden you like a 200 pound monkey. Yes! They are energy sappers as well.
I had to first confront the truth about liars in breaking from an addict -- my ex-husband. It was then that I began paying attention to how I allowed lies to burden me. Never wanting to call folx on their lies. I didn't want to embarrass them...gee whiz.
I realized that I was allowing myself to be disrespected because damnit everybody told me lies and I was readily believing them and not wanting any confrontations.
Well, in short, after getting sick and tired of being sick and tired about how people altered my peace and drained my energy with their need to tell me lies, I declared no more!
One by one, I called people on their lies. As I weeded through this process - and I knew ahead of time who they would be - my circle of peace grew wider and wider.
My reward was learning truth that my peace was mine and that I did not need to tolerate people who took me for granted and disrespected me. Inside the widening circle of peace, I had more time to call myself on my own lies (oh, oh--you mean I lie, too?) and that is where I began to find happiness with my peace.
Now that was a bonus I had not expected!
Swaggie
"If you listen to the whispers, you won't hear the screams."
Rev. Run (DMC)
http://swaggiecoleman.blogspot.com/