The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
• Richard P. Feynmann
Up till this moment, I believed myself to be a truthful person.
Now that it’s just the two of us alone, face to face, the ugly truth hits like a hammer to my forehead.
I am a liar.
The evidence is clear.
I am good at deception. I shade the truth when it suits me. I will – through word or action – mislead you. I will – through silence or inaction – allow you to believe something I know to be false.
Blow by blow, the evidence sledgehammers away my lies. By chips and by cracks, the façade of my self-deception crumbles away.
It’s bad enough that I deceived you for a few days. But now I realize, I have deceived myself for a lifetime.
That truth is almost too much to bear.
Almost.
My friend Ruby has a poster on her kitchen wall of a rag doll being run through a wringer. The rag doll says, “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
The rag doll is right.
Dr. Feynmann was right. I am the easiest person in the world to fool.
Jordan Peterson says, “lying makes you weak.” Jordan Peterson is right.
Lying weakens me mentally. It weakens me morally. It weakens me emotionally. It even weakens me physically.
And the inverse is also true: Telling the truth makes me stronger.
I remember when I first started weight training. That weight scared me. It was easier to avoid the work. To half-ass the rep. To plead tiredness or injury. Anything to avoid getting under the bar, putting the weight on my shoulders, and doing the work.
But doing the work is what makes me stronger. Avoiding the work makes me weaker.
That’s the nature of reality.
That’s the nature of the truth.
Modern life – love, business, friendships, parenting – present daily chances to deceive. Daily chances to fool myself. Daily chances to weaken myself.
No more.
I love how the truth feels in my body.
The temptation to deceive is a cluster of sensations. I feel it as tightness in my throat and weight on my chest.
My old response to those sensations was to deceive.
Now?
Those sensations are my signal. I have a choice. Tell the truth or deceive? Get stronger, or make myself weaker?
I relish those moments now.
No deception, at any time, for any reason. None.