A tuesday Parable

I was told a Parable a long time ago, which had appreciable wisdom, and as I age I can see how that same wisdom can transfer to other aspects of being a decent human being. The original Parable is about anger:

"A young family move to the grandparent's farm so the kids can grow up in the clean country air. The grandfather notices the young grandson playing out back with his sister. The boy is making a toy fort, but makes a mistake and takes out his frustration on his younger sister. The grandfather notices the young boy doing this again and again; every time something frustrates the boy, he gets angry with his sister, mother, or father.

One day the grandfather sees the young boy getting mad, so he goes over to him with a bucket of nails and a hammer. He shows the boy a brand new post, and tells the boy that when he is angry, he is to vent his anger by hammering nails into the post. The first time the boy hammers many nails, but as time goes on he is finding he has to do less hammering to feel his anger dissipate, until one day he realizes he is able to control his anger and no longer needs to vent it at someone or by hammering nails in the post.

He excitedly tells his grandfather that it has been two weeks since he last put a nail in the post! Grandfather tells him he is proud of him, and to mark each day that he is not venting his anger, he can pull one nail out of the post to mark the occasion. The grandson finds that taking the nails out takes much longer than putting the nails in, and that it is many months later before the post is free of nails.

The young boy takes his grandfather over to show him how he has removed all the nails from the post as a symbol of being able to control his anger. He is quite proud of himself! The grandfather takes the boy by the shoulder and asks him to look at the post. "I am proud of you for learning to control your anger, but can you see how that even though you removed all the nails from the post it is still not the same post as it was before? It is full of nail holes and no longer is as strong as it was. The same is true of angry outbursts: despite apologies and good intentions you can never completely undo the damage that an angry outburst causes to another person."

This same parable applies also to lying. Even if you apologize for the lie, the damage to the relationship is done, and the level of trust or respect will never be the same. Of course there are different levels of lies; some are "little white lies", some are meant to protect the feelings of another, but most are more selfish. If you stick with my parable, you can think of the small lies as thumb tacks, and the big ones as fencing nails. Even the thumb tack will do damage just not as much.

Kids lie as part of their developmental process, and some people just don't seem to outgrow it. Teenagers are funny in that they often seem to use lying as a power struggle and then act shocked when the adults around them no longer trust them or extend to them the same privileges and respect. The truth is that most lies are found out, and most people can sense dishonesty without knowing the precise lie. Most kids/teenagers lack the ability to keep a lie straight anyway.

Plus, even if the lie is never found out, it will still damage the relationship as there will be this guilt between you and the person you lied to.

Occassionally you know someone is lying to you, but they don't know you know. In these cases it can be fun to run with the lie and torture them until they confess.

One of our boarders is having big trouble with a coworker who is regularly lying about work related matters...things easily found out. Makes no sense and jeopardizes the company and other employees as well as customers. Why she is lying is unclear...it seems like it is to make the lives of those around her difficult.

Some lies are meant to spare feelings, but usually tact is the better way to go in the long run.

Some lies are done so someone can get their own way despite what is in their (or others) best interests...such as lying so they can go to a party or so they can avoid studying for an exam their parents don't know about. These lies are stupid as they usually just end up hurting the liar as well as damaging the trust.

People lie to avoid awkwardness (grow up), or to avoid jail. Some people lie to avoid conflict or out of fear; this kind of lie reflects badly on both parties.

And people lie to show someone else up...kind of a power struggle. Bad kind of lie.

And that is my lesson in morality for the month... anyone have anything they think they should tell me?

Karen