The above quote comes from the gifted hand of Sir Walter Scott, and those who successfully take in these sage words should know for a certainty that lying and deceit take us away from the straight and narrow, thereby leading us down unfavorable pathways which serve to damage our good character. No doubt, there are times when it can be rather convenient to be deceptive or to lie, because, for instance, we do not desire to face the consequences of where the truth would place us – but to believe that deceit has not its own consequences is to misunderstand that every wrong action taken, in which that action taken lacks integrity and is structured to deceive, has its very own consequences, that will be paid, sooner or later, and often to our lasting regret.
The thing about the truth is that the truth has but one story, and therefore it is relatively easy to speak to the truth because it is not only what we believe, but to the best of our ability, consists of the truth of the matter. On the other hand, when we lie or deceive, we thereby have to construct a story, and the offshoots of that story can continue for quite a distance, because once we begin our travel down the pathway of deceit, that deceit, has a habit of taking on a life of its own, which not only makes it difficult for us to keep our story straight, but also makes it difficult to remember that lie completely, because what we said happened, didn’t happen that way, thereby presenting a conflict in our mind, and making it difficult to remember that for this story, we need to keep lying the exact same way or else that inconsistency could itself betray us.
So too, there are those storytellers, who tell the story one way to one person and a different way to a different person, in which neither story is true, which thereby makes it nearly impossible for them to not only remember it that way, but also places the storyteller in the unenviable position in which if notes by these two different persons are compared then the storyteller will be seen as being deceitful, and the object of the exercise when a given person lies, is for that lie to not be exposed, for when they are found out, their integrity and credibility take a most serious hit.
Indeed, when our credibility is damaged, it makes even telling the truth and having it believed by others, much more problematic, because once a person is known as a liar, this signifies that what they have to say or recount is going to be properly discounted, because they have already proven that their word really isn’t worth all that much, which means, those that have bad reputations are going to have to work a heck of a lot harder, to recover their loss integrity, of which, none of this would be in play, if they hadn’t decided to weave their web of deceit in the first place.