The Truth?

When a behavior or behaviors stay the same and the reasons or explanations change, someone is not telling the truth. We don’t know immediately what the reasons are for the untruth. There was a series several years ago called “Lie to Me”, where the main character, Cal Lightman, was an expert in facial expressions and body language. He could read people. This skill came in very handy for legal purposes. But Cal always warned those who hired him that he could tell that someone was lying but could not give the reason. Detective work was necessary to uncover the person’s reasons. Many times, the underlying causes of the lie turned out to be self-serving and criminal, but many other times it turned out that the person was lying to protect another person or that they were extremely afraid of something or someone else.

Most of us know someone who is perpetually late and always has a different excuse. Many of us know someone who has been caught doing something and has several different “stories” depending on who they are talking to. If you are witnessing these changing-story people, the important point is to stop looking at the story and look at the fact that telling stories is all “smoke and mirrors.” The real issue is that the person has something they DO NOT want to tell! In the case of the perpetual tardiness, maybe the person is feeling a bit helpless in their life and has found their only source of power, making others wait. Or maybe they are having a very difficult time committing to anything, even to appointments. We cannot be sure. We just know that something is not right. If the relationship with this person matters to you then you may want to have an interaction about the lateness. And if the changing-story person has a position of power over others, especially if their position requires trust, it becomes critical to get to the bottom of what is not being said. It is even more serious when the underlying reasons for the stories are hurting others. The TRUTH becomes mandatory! We need to stop listening to the stories and ask, “Why are you telling stories?”