I don’t want to begin by lying to you. I was a pretty good liar, and there are some lies I have told so many times for so many years that I cannot remember whether or not they are truth or pure fiction. Some of them now feel as though they really happened! Before you start judging me, you had best remember that you have told some lies as well. For all I know, you may even be better at telling lies than I was.

A few years ago I resolved to reduce the number of lies I told by seventy percent. Hey, I am human – so seventy percent is was my goal. The remaining thirty percent just proves I am imperfect; who can live without telling a lie here or there?

I am not old yet, but I know very well that telling lies just does not cut it. You tell one lie here or there, and as soon as it is uncovered, you have to tell another to cover the first one, and as soon as holes are found in that one, what do you do? You tell yet another to cover it too. Soon, you have a long chain of lies covering one lie.

The chain cannot continue forever, and sooner than expected, the cards of lies come crumbing down on you. What does it leave in its aftermath? The truth! The truth that you had been lying all the while.

And at this moment of truth, we lower our heads in shame and regret; we discover that the truth is always the best – something we should have known ages before.

I know very well that you and I cannot stop lying entirely, but I am aware of the disgrace it can lead us to. With that at the back of your mind, I want you to join me in making a resolution to tell the truth in the most demanding situations and to hold on to the virtue of truth. The aftermath of telling a lie is not a pleasant one; it could bring down all the respect and dignity you have built over the years.

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