The Day I Became A White-Liar

Growing up, I was taught that the worst thing anyone can do is lie, and there were severe punishments for doing so. In fact, one of my mother’s favorite rebukes was, “God’ll get you if you’re lying!” I had been to church, and I knew enough to realize I already had a strike against me because I had never been baptized. Not my fault, but it still wasn’t worth the risk of being doubly damned. I think we’re all well aware that there are situations in which truth can go violently wrong, and I lived my life stuck in an iron maiden of morality—no matter which way I moved, there’d be pain. (Take for example the planning of a surprise party for my father’s eightieth birthday. I had to LIE TO MY FATHER for an entire year. Torture.) Therefore, I was, for my entire life, an obsequious, obsessive orator of fact.

Until Yesterday.

There’s freedom in being able to speak your mind. There’s love in being able to tell the truth, occasionally even painful truth, to people you care about. But certain things, as the saying goes, are better left unsaid, while others are best couched in something softer.

So I Became A White Liar.

It happened yesterday, after work. For the sake of this conversation, we’ll call my coworker “Ace.” I like Ace as a person, but I think this person is completely incompetent for the position they’re in. (That, my friends, is a thing I will never speak to anyone’s face, a thing best left unsaid.) Ace has a tendency of talking over others and of leaping to perilously baseless conclusions. Anyway, we were talking about some work-related thing, and Ace was doing their usual conclusion-jump. I could have argued the facts, but I chose not to, ostensibly because I was tired and really just didn’t want to bother. But I think some part of my brain knew the truth wouldn’t matter and the issue was trivial. So I lied. Not like a full-blown falsification, but just a tiny mistruth. 

A White Lie.

And just like that, the conversation was over. Ace was happy, my day was intact, and I got to go home. Our professional relationship was unharmed, and I wasn’t stressing over how the truth might impact this person. (Because I obviously am responsible for managing the emotions of everyone around me. But that’s a blog for another day!) 

Sometimes, white lies are better than truth: kinder, softer. And if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the pathway to heaven might just be paved with a few white lies.

Maybe I’ll avoid hell, after all.