People Lie A Lot

Not all lies are based on scams and infidelity.  Some people lie because of their pride.  As I've gotten older, I see that more often than anything else these days.  I'll give you two examples:

Men tend to do it to prevent from looking naive.  Some guys will act as if they "know-it-all" to impress you rather than admitting that they could use some help with whatever that they are doing.  Example: A guy I know started a podcast.  I've been podcasting for over a decade.  I know that the type of podcast that you wish to have and the frequency that you plan on doing it can determine what kind of setup you may need.  When he told me his plan, I told him to reach out to me if he needed some insight or advice purchasing equipment.  He told me that he had it figured out and did his research and knew exactly what he wanted to buy.

He spent almost $1300 for his podcasting equipment for something that fizzled out in less than a month.  Then he asked me if I wanted to buy any of his equipment.  I told him, "No.  I'd never spend that much on equipment in the first place unless I was making my podcast a full-time job."  His pride made him lie to me in the beginning when he said that he knew what he was doing when he didn't.  And that was a very expensive lesson to him.  I'm not saying that I'm an expert, but I do have experience, and sometimes two heads are better than one.

Women lie for pride's sake, but for different reasons.  I once worked with a young lady who would participate in relationship discussions with us in the break room from time-to-time.  She always bragged about how she is just "doing her" and isn't paying men any attention.  She said that she was abstaining from sex and would make the next man wait because "she knew her worth".  She was always the most vocal whenever we participated in the conversations.  No man was ever going to get over on her!

Well, to this day, she doesn't know that I knew the guy that she was sleeping with at the time.  Ms. Abstinence actually had a restraining order against her for stalking him and his girlfriend.  He'd already bragged to me prior to my break room conversations with her that he'd slept with her a few times and she wouldn't leave him alone and she ultimately started harassing his woman.

All while she was telling us how she was "this and that" every day, dude was passing his phone around regularly showing nude pics of her. It made me feel badly for her to wonder how many people knew she was lying about how she "handles" men.

Look, we all lie.  But it's more to it than doing so to get out of trouble these days.  Social media tends to influence some of us to appear a certain way that we're not in real life.  How many times has someone that you know very well posted something that you knew wasn't true?  More than you can count?

Guys, it's okay to say, "I don't know" instead of acting like you know what you're doing and costing yourself time and money.  Tell someone "I need your help" with something and learn to take instructions sometimes.

Ladies, you may want to reconsider some of the things you claim you do or don't do with guys because guys talk more than ever these days.  There is no longer a code that guys live by.  Don't have these guys fool you into thinking that they don't "kiss and tell" and have you looking stupid in these streets.

It's time for all of us to be adults and to stop lying.

What Happened to Pride?

Pride starts at home.

I really try hard to do the right thing.  I really try hard to be a good person.  But, for what?  What is the pay off for me working so hard to be presentable to the public?  My mom passed away last year, so it's not about trying not to embarrass her.  My father is 72 years old and I don't do it to impress him either.

What is it?  What makes me go about my life the way that I do?  What makes me watch what I say in public,  try to dress appropriately for where I'm going and give maximum effort on my job?  Pride.  What happened to pride?  You could see it in so many people back in the day and now it's almost non-existent.

I listened to stories that my parents told me about when they were kids.  People back then had so much pride to the point that it almost seemed like a full-time job within itself.  I have relatives who were janitors, maids, etc. who didn't feel any shame in the jobs that they did.  In fact, they were completely the opposite.

They were so proud of being employed that they worked as hard as they could and rarely took time off.  My parents instilled that same pride in me.  They taught me how to always do my best and work hard.  I do the things that I do because I now have pride in myself.  It wasn't always like that though.  I had to evolve.

When I was younger, like most kids, I acted accordingly not because I cared how I looked in the public's eyes, but to make my parents proud.  I knew that as long as they were happy, then more than likely, I would be, too.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

However, as I got older things changed.  The things I did became more about me and less about my parents.  I realized that I didn't just represent them, but I had my own reputation to uphold as well.  It took seeing some of my peers establishing bad reputations to realize it.  However, what people thought wasn't my only motivation to be a certain way.  What I thought of myself played the most important role in establishing pride in my life.

I cleaned my house when I knew no one was coming over.  I brushed my hair even though I knew I wasn't leaving the home that day.  I realized that I truly had pride in myself when I found myself putting forth a maximum effort doing things that no one would ever see.  I thank my parents for that.  I spent so much time in my life trying to make sure they were happy with my behavior, that I didn't realize that I was benefiting from it myself.

Pride is becoming extinct and it's almost completely non-existent in males.  No one feels ashamed for what they say, how they dress, or how they perform because you can't shame someone who doesn't care.  And if a child doesn't have parents who instills pride in their kids at an early age, then that makes it that much tougher to develop good habits.

This is the society that we live in now.  No one cares any more.  And the people who do care try to keep their families as far away as they can from the people who don't.  I can't say that I blame them.  So many influences of the wrong things flood our television and radio markets and what do we do as parents?  We allow our kids to partake in it.  Why?  Because other kids are doing it.  They're going to hear it anyway.  Why do we let our kids dress like adults?  "Because other kids are doing it."  "They're going to do it anyway."

That's our justification for promoting shame and demoting pride.  SMH.

Do you think that the days of people caring about anything are gone now?

If the parents don't care, then you know the kids won't.