~ Lying ~

When the elders said "we should not lie", that is a lie.

People should lie instead of telling the truth. Lying is not a bad thing. I lied so much in my life that I got sick of lying, so, I just tell the truth. It's not like anyone could tell it is the truth or not, or is it a lie.

What is a lie? People uses it to cover up the truth. They used it to avoid conflict. They used it to prevent troubles. No one can accept the total truth for the whole time. Even when a person says "if you tell me the truth, I won't ...(action, emotions or anything)...", that is a lie.

In the study of Malaysians, we are considered as collectivist. That means that Malaysians would prefer to be in "WE" and "US" rather than "I", "ME" and "MYSELF". (It also means that my best friends are not "I", "ME" and "MYSELF".) We are not selfish pricks that would only walk, talk, eat, drink, play or study alone. We must be in a group when we are doing something. Therefore, as collectivists, it is important that we Malaysians, in Chinese context, need to "give face" or avoid any moments that would caused other people feel awkward or embarrassing. To keep the interpersonal harmony, we would even consider telling a lie if the lie helps more than the truth. Thus, for Malaysians, lying is not a biggie.

A lie can be major or minor. For a major issue, it would be like a person did something illegal then uses lies to cover it up and avoid being caught. Meanwhile, a simple lie, a white lie of "I'm alright" when people asks you even though it is so obvious that you are not okay or in a bad mood. It is just depending on when did you used it for and why.

So, how did all of this started? I believe that a person started to lie when they are young, when they have learn the technique to talk. Children cries, screams, and shouts because they know that, by doing all those things, they could get what they wanted. At the same time, they also learn about good and bad things, like they should not eat candy before dinner. So, after learning that having candy before dinner would lead to scoldings and punishments, the children will know that what they had done is actually bad. Then if the parents starts to question and if the child really had done the wrong act, they would try to say they didn't do it, which means they have already started to lie. It is about the self-preservatives instinct in everyone. If people know and understand what danger is, then they would do anything to avoid it. It does not matter whether the danger is physical, emotional, psychological or relationship. As long as it would do some damage, people have the tendency of avoiding it, until it hits them in the face.

We can say that lying is a human nature because they would prefer to show the better side only. By lying, people could hide the unpleasant facts of oneself or surrounding. It would help the person to have a better life sometimes or easier chances. That is due to the fact that, we are collectivists. We want to care for the feelings of other people.

Therefore, lying is not a bad thing. It is a common thing that would occur in our daily life. However, people receive lies as something bad or negative. That is because by lying, people would think you are covering something, which made people think that they are not worth your time or your trust. It's like you are abandoning your relationship, your privacy is more important.

Despite that, even though we are collectivists, we are not nudists. We do not have to reveal everything to the public. We also need some "I", "ME" and "MYSELF" time too.

So, people, don't think that lying is equal to bad.