The following is my truth. Remember that while reading the text. Also remember this: Unlike my books where everyone is, and done by someone who is a professional, few of the texts under this blog are proofread.
How do you know that the person you live with can lie to you?
How do you know that the person you live with may one day leave you?
How do you know that the person you live with might stop loving you?
How do you know that the person you live with might fall in love with someone else?
How do you know that the person you live with might be attracted to someone else?
The answer to the questions is the same: It is a human being. And so are you.
If we accept that how someone sometimes behaves is not about us as individuals, rather it is our human nature, then our way of responding and dealing with difficulties can become more constructive and developmental. We blame ourselves less when things we don't appreciate happen. We judge the one we live with less. We find it easier to understand and forgive. Why? Because we are aware that it could just as well have been us. Because we are aware that in the school of life everyone sometimes makes mistakes, very rarely because we mean badly but instead because some things are in our nature. And because we don't always succeed in living up to who we aspire to be.
This about lying is a very interesting question, I think. You may think that it is not in our nature to lie. I think it does. What we should discuss is not whether it is our nature or not, but rather this: What is a lie? Is the influence of the environment, to make a prey animal walk into a trap, a lie? Is the promise to a child that everything will be fine, even though you can't see into the future, a lie? Is shaking hands with and smiling at someone you actually hate, but you do it to create peace, a lie? Is "I'll never leave you" or "Never stop loving you!" a lie, when you know that one day you will die or when most of the statistics speak for the opposite? Is "This was the best thing I've ever eaten!" a lie, especially when at the moment you can't remember all the thousands of dishes you've eaten?
For someone, a lie can be a person denying sexual intercourse with someone they had it with. For another, a lie can already begin when a mother tells her three-year-old: "Santa Claus exists." For a third, a lie can be high-heeled shoes, make-up and false nails. Where is your limit for what a lie is? What lies do you give that you, based on your morals, justify? And have you asked yourself if others, based on their morals, would share your view?
learn to tell the difference between when someone tries to hit you with a punch and when someone happens to come at you.
Personally, I believe it is in our nature to lie. I accept it and therefore do not suffer from it being so. Because lying doesn't have to be out of evil. Yes, a lie can hurt, but a lie (twisting the truth to help) can also help someone to dare, to hope, to dream. For me, it's more important with the purpose behind it and the reason for it.
If someone in my family chooses to lie to me, I don't automatically interpret it as that the person means me badly (of course it depends on the lie. I came close to hitting my head on a rock when a former friend lied about was ok to dive in. The person had gotten to their knees with water up to their chest and lied about it being deep enough to dive in). It could just as well be that right then and there it is not strong enough to tell me the truth. Who am I then to judge or demand that it be stronger than it is capable of being at the time. It could also be that I myself am not strong enough to take the truth, that is the reason why I get a lie. Can we ever really know?
Of course we can wish for the truth. But if we are honest, can we ourselves always and regardless deliver the truth? I do not think so. Then it is also the case that as noble as it may be considered to be always honest, just as much it can be a sign of a lack of judgment and respect.
But luckily we don't.
I think like this, dear readers: Things other people do can hurt us, hurt us. How much and how deep mostly doesn't depend on the person and the lie, it depends on how grounded and strong we are. However, remember the difference between someone intentionally trying to hurt you and someone accidentally hurting you. Don't stay with the person who deliberately tries to hurt you, whether it happens physically or psychologically. That is why above I wrote "ex. Friend". Figuratively speaking: Learn to tell the difference between when someone is trying to hit you with a punch and when someone is accidentally coming at you.
And don't forget that you yourself can be the one who next causes pain to someone else without knowing it. Also, don't forget that the reason why, for example, someone lies to you or is tired of you could just as well be you. If we teach our children to lie from the beginning, we cannot later expect them to always be honest with us. And from the beginning, however reluctant most people want to see it that way, we do it by e.g. tell a small child that there is a fat old man who comes through a chimney with presents for all good children. (That it is for "kind" children is as sick as it can be. But we humans do and repeat without questioning what we are actually doing and what message we are sending out. That is one of the reasons why it takes generations for us to reach a higher level of consciousness, I believe.)
But Daniel, isn't it hard to walk around knowing that humans, by nature, lie? maybe you want to ask me. First I want to write: We can all, by nature, kill. Someone might now be thinking: Not me! ... (and then kills a tick or a mosquito). Yes, you too. All. But luckily we don't. I went from killing mosquitoes on my hand to now blowing them away or sometimes letting them take blood and then fly away. My natural instinct is no longer to kill the mosquito that lands on me. Nor the tick that crawls on me. Do you understand my point? We can by our nature, but we don't need it based on the fact that we have the ability to relearn and choose a different way.
But back to the question of whether it's not hard to bear the knowledge that everyone is capable of lying (and even does it sometimes, based on what I then consider a lie to be). Isn't it better to believe good of everyone? Allow me to answer with a counter question: Is it a burden to carry the knowledge that everyone, exactly everyone, dies or even have the capacity to kill? Anyone who answers yes lives in an emotional cage that is not useful to them. The risk is great that it neither accepts human nature nor the course of life. The risk is great that it has inhumane demands on others and also on itself. To what avail, my dear?
Something I consider to be very beautiful about us humans and life is this: Even though some things can today be considered our nature, we can choose not to. We can change. Because nothing that is natural is permanent. Life is development. It's evolution. We can learn not to. We can train ourselves to be better at not letting go.
Complexity is human nature and the course of life. Do you agree?
Daniel Mendoza
