Lies we like to tell and be told. There are several candidates. I will focus on two.
Lie #1: You can be anything you wish to be.
This is one of the most appealing lies and it is reinforced regularly by people who tell stories of improbable success against all odds. The problem is this statement is clearly false when taken literally and often false once the appropriate caveats are included.
Clearly I cannot be a squirrel even if I wish to be so. Perhaps Native American magic mushrooms will provide the illusion that I have become a squirrel, but Western logic and millennia of experience say it just isn't so.
The less ridiculous version promises that you can rise above, spread your (metaphoric) wings, and fly beyond anything that anyone ever expected of you. To prove that point we draw attention to the overachievers, the well connected, and the genuinely lucky. We even rush to quotations about how luck is made.
But talk of bootstrap pulling and overcoming does not negate the reality that our dreams have limitations and that telling our children and ourselves that those limitations are not real serves no practical purpose.
Yes, I believe in hard work. I believe in overcomers. I believe in dreams fulfilled. I believe, yes, I believe. I just don't believe that my children, particularly my daughter, ever had a legitimate shot genetically or environmentally of becoming starters in the NBA. That isn't to dash their hopes and crush their dreams, but to help guide them in directions that will bring actual fulfillment, actual meaning, and actual opportunities to serve their fellow humans.
Let's quit promoting life in a dream world and help people achieve in the actual world.
Lie #2: Everything will be all right.
"Decisions Determine Destiny" was the title of my father's baccalaureate address when my brother graduated from high school. I've never forgotten that title or its message.
Actions have consequences. You cannot walk away from every situation unharmed. You cannot turn back the clock, unring the bell, or avoid all that you have set into motion.
Sometimes we make poor decisions. Some poor decisions unalterably change the path of our lives. Sometimes negative consequences aren't even the result of poor choices, but of life circumstances we were unable to avoid. A friend hit a toddler with his car - through no fault of his own - and that incident never left him.
I don't want to soothe my children by telling them everything will be all right when it just well may not be. I want to influence my children so they avoid making life-altering decisions having negative consequences that haunt them for the rest of their time on earth. I want to encourage them that I believe in a providential God who is available to work through every situation - even those intended for evil.
What I don't want to do is lie to them - suggesting that by "all right" the world will be as they might wish rather than as it is.
Some of you disagree with me that these are lies. You're probably right. Telling a lie is speaking with the intent to deceive rather than an issue of merely saying something false. Some people believe these lies so that when they speak them they do not intend to deceive - they are simply passing along the deception they've already suffered.
