None of us like to be called a liar. We know by nature that lying is wrong and that we prefer it if people are telling us the truth. But is it actually what we like?
There is an old short poem in Polish literature written by Kochanowski. It tells a story of two painters. The first one had unbelievable talent. All portraits painted by him were like they were alive. We was able to catch the smallest details. The second painter was kind of a mediocre artist. His portraits were far from the real look of the person, but he had one catch: he always skipped any imperfection of the person he was painting. Apparently the first couldn't get anyone to his studio and he was very poor. The second artist had a lot of clients and a lot of money. The conclusion of the poem is that people prefer to have their portraits look better than they looked in reality.
This is just a poem but it touches a very important issue. We prefer to hear truth as long as it is nice and working for us. But there is a lot of truth that is not always in our favor. In those moments lies are most welcome. There is only one problem with it. It is not truth. Those small lies grow in us and after some time we really believe that they are the truth.
For seven years I worked as a teacher at a High School. Every few months I had to get together with the parents and tell them about their children. Of course every parent wanted to hear how wonderful their child was. Unfortunately I couldn't say it and very often the parents were surprised. Some of them blamed me, the school, or other teachers. I knew that not every child had the same talents, skills and predisposition to be good at everything so I would slowly explain that maybe it would be better for their son or daughter to put more focus on something else. Most of the time these parents didn't want to hear that and they got mad.
I had the privilege to meet with my students a few years after and, to my big surprise, they were thankful that when they were at school I was honest with them and because of what I said they found a better future for themselves.
It was a time of painful truth but it was also a time when the same truth saved the lives of those young people. Truth is powerful and leads to internal freedom. It may be difficult in the beginning but the more we accept it the more fruits of it we can see. I never was a good teacher at school (because of my way of teaching) but I always took care of my students so that they would be able to face the reality of life when they left the school. Today I pray for them, for their families, and I praise God that he helped them almost twenty years ago to accept the hard truth about themselves.