When Lies Mean Protection

“Always telling the truth is no doubt better than always lying, although equally pathological,” says the blogger Robert Brault. Whereas some people believe that telling the truth is always the best option, I think that it depends on the situation we are dealing with. 

People tend to deceive when they want to safeguard someone who they care about. For example, it is quite common when brothers and sisters support one another to avoid being grounded from their parents. They undoubtedly will lie if they need to be safe from some situation where truth means being vulnerable to risk. Another example of this is when friends cover their backs up from girlfriends/boyfriends to make a shield and defend each other from any specific situation when one of the people involved is in more danger if they tell the truth than if they tell a lie and can guarantee a collective satisfaction, which is my case. Although I do not like lying, I did it to protect a friend because the more we care about someone, the more we are likely to lie.

 A couple of years ago, a friend of mine ask me to help him to create a false story to avoid problems with his girlfriend and after I told him that it was outright unfair to his girlfriend, I finally agreed to help him. In addition, people habitually choose to create a delusion to elude uncomfortable situations when truth can make and affect people that we love. If I would not have told a lie to my friend’s girlfriend, my friend would have been in a tough situation. I do not know why my friend did that, but I am pretty sure that he will never do it again. He was kind of confused about his relationship by that time and after that date with the other girl, he felt very bad about lying to who is now his wife. Apparently, the more you lie, the more awful you feel. Moreover, sometimes lies can represent a way to respect other people choices. For instance, it was no my business that my friend decided to cheat on his girlfriend. I confronted him with my opinion, but it was no my problem that he chose to did it. 

In summary, telling the truth is not always the best option because there are situations when lies can protect someone. Taking aside some values and moral standards, we know that life is packed with constant changes and replete of specific situations when we manipulate the truth a little bit in order to keep someone safe. The more subjective you are, the more likely you are to lie.