Persuasive Lying Essay free essay sample

People often say that honesty is the best policy. You should listen to them they know what they’re talking about. Lying. In the dictionary the definition of lying is an â€Å"intentionally told false statement† but the dictionary doesn’t list the consequences of a lie or why said false statements were used. So, I’ll have to do it. I know that no one wants to hear that they look fat or grotesque , or that the ugly sweater they gave someone for Christmas will never see anything but the inside of a closet. We as humans believe that telling a lie will avoid unnecessary conflict. Does it though? They also think lying could gain themselves attention. But would they want the attention after a while? Some people also believe lying will help avoid hurting others. What if the person being lied to is the kind of person who would want to know the truth regardless? Yet, you still spare their feelings to avoid hurting them. We will write a custom essay sample on Persuasive Lying Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page These are just a few situations that we, as human beings, would use a so called lie. In the end however, karma comes back around and you get in an even worse conflicted situation then what it could have been if you told the truth, you’ve gained unwanted attention, and you’ve hurt the people closest to you. Is this what you want? Lying is used in many different situations. One of these ways is to avoid unnecessary conflict between you and someone you’re close to as well as someone of authority. Throughout anyone’s lifetime they would be able to say that they’ve lied to their parents at least once. Whether it’s about school or relationships it has happened. Most teenagers have skipped out of school to hang out with their friends when in their parent’s reality they were supposed to be in English. Like Marji from Persepolis who was ditching school to hang out with her friends and get some coffee when she was actually supposed to be studying religion. Other teenagers have parents tell them they are not allowed to date but they do so anyways. But, what if their parents were to find out? How do you think they will react to the idea of you skipping school? Or to you having a boyfriend or girlfriend before they think your old enough? Each parent in the world is different but they all have some form of punishment. One other example would be lying to a teacher, someone with a position of authority in a school. A student can lie about the reason they were late to class to the old â€Å"my dog ate my homework† excuse. This kind of lying is very difficult for the person telling the lie, because it involves telling someone who is in a position of authority what he or she wants to hear. The student lying doesn’t tell the truth to avoid unnecessary conflict and it is studied that always telling the truth leads to more bad than good. Another example would be those who lie to a police officer or any person related to the law. You could tell him or her you didn’t murder your algebra teacher just because you hate math but you actually did or you could be selling drugs and telling them you aren’t. If you do it once whose to say you won’t do it again? These things are very serious as well as having serious consequences. So just tell them the truth. At the very least you’ll feel better without the heavy burden of knowing that you’ve lied. Lying to avoid conflict will only result in an even bigger confrontation of what it could’ve been if you had told the truth in the first place. Another reason someone might lie is to gain attention. It can be from parents, strangers, and even your friends. Children. From the day they’re born all they get is attention from their parents. If they have siblings they would have to share it. Most kids don’t want to do that. They’d prefer to have all the attention to themselves because they have a sense of self importance. A little girl somewhere must have thought â€Å"Ugh! If my baby brother wasn’t sick mom and dad could have watched me dance in the school play. † Or a little boy could be thinking, â€Å"I just hit a home run! But where are my parents? Oh yeah. I remember. They’re at the hospital waiting for Sarah to get out of surgery. Why is everything always about her?! † Things like this happen more than you’d think. The little girl could lie and pretend to be sick just to get her parents attention. But what good will that do if they think it’s serious and they take her to the doctor and she’s not really sick. She’d be in a lot of trouble and the attention she now has from her parents is unwanted. The little boy can lie too. He can tell his parents that he broke his back and they’ll finally pay attention to him. But then they make him wear a metal back brace and all his friends at school laugh at him. He gets the attention he wants from his parents but the unwanted attention from his classmates. Another example would be my own. When I was five I used to think things were very simple. I was very naive and of course I was childish, completely unaware of what was wrong with the world. It all happened at my cousin Shawnee’s birthday party. We were running around the house playing tag and my cousin Shawnee hit me with a plushie basketball. It didn’t really hurt but I ran away pretending to cry and told her parents she threw a basketball at me (notice I didn’t say â€Å"plushie† basketball). The reason I told on her wasn’t because I wanted to be mean. It was because I wanted attention. The entire day all I’ve heard was â€Å"Shawnee’s so cute! â€Å" â€Å"Shawnee this and Shawnee that. † I was jealous. So what better way to gain everyone’s attention than to make the birthday girl an aggressor and myself the innocent victim. I know I lied. She started crying and saying it wasn’t true and eventually everyone believed her. So I got a time-out and no cake. Now let’s say you are put in a situation where you had to lie to the authorities to get their attention. You’re best friend had been accused of something he or she didn’t do. He or she asks you to stall the police so that they can come up with the means to prove themselves innocent. Obviously you wouldn’t know how to stall the police. So you’d think why not make up a crime so serious that they would push your best friend aside to take care of it. You say that your sister is missing but really you paid her a hundred dollars to stay in her room. They eventually find her and you’re in deep. Your spending the night in jail wondering†¦why did I lie? As you can see here lying to gain attention will get you no where because you could end up in an embarrassing back brace, prison, or you could find yourself in a corner sulking while everyone around you is eating cake. Reason three for lying is a good one. You may have lied to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. You can lie to spare your friends, your parents, even strangers. Say you have a friend who is rather large in size and she’s self-conscience about her weight because the guy she likes told her she’s fat and made her cry. The next day she comes up to you and asks â€Å"Am I fat? † Most people in this situation might lie and say that she’s as skinny as Paris Hilton and that her crush is a jerk just to avoid hurting her feelings. But the next day thanks to you she has regained her confidence and decides to show up to school in shorts and a tight tank top. Everyone laughs at her because of her size in such small clothing. She looks at herself in the hall mirror and realizes that you lied to her. She comes up to you crying and says â€Å"Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? † then she runs away and never talks to you again. A true friend would be honest with her but put it nicely. Say if your parents ask you if you think they’re old and they are like seriously old. You lie and say they’re young and totally â€Å"down with the kids† or whatever. Later that week your mother is wearing your clothes and your dad thinks that he’s â€Å"da bomb† and that he can hang out with you and your friends at the mall. You just made matters worse for yourself. They think they can do what you do just because you lied to them about their age of the dinosaur. Next thing you know they’re trying to speak your language and are planning to attend your senior prom! All because you didn’t tell them the truth instead you decide to be a sympathetic person and spare their feelings. At that point I’d say â€Å"Sweet baby Jesus, your old! Please take off my clothes and stop saying fosheezee my neezee. † That phrase is so two thousand and four. Say someone you don’t know very well comes up to you and asks you out but you don’t like them or know them well enough to say yes. You want to say no. You feel sympathetic because the person in front of you looks like he or she is about to cry if you say no. So you lie and say yes. As it turns out you didn’t dislike this person enough. He or she is always late for a date, eats like a pig, disrespect’s your parents, etcetera. Later on he or she finds out from your friends that you don’t really like him or her. They become upset and break up with you because of a broken heart. You couldn’t have been happier†¦and yet you feel guilty for some reason. You feel that way because you just now realized if you hadn’t lied about your feelings you wouldn’t have broken his or hers heart and you would have saved your parents the stress. These situations are lessons well learned. If you don’t lie to avoid hurting other people’s feelings you’d save a friend from being teased, a parent from embarrassing you, and a fake relationship. In the end however, karma comes back around and you get in an even worse conflicted situation then what it could have been if you told the truth, you’ve gained unwanted attention, and you’ve hurt the people closest to you. Is this what you want? I’m not going to say I don’t lie because everyone does. I’m just against it from now on. All because of lies we as humans have built the government, local communities, television, other human beings, etcetera. This common human fault that may have helped us during certain points of time doesn’t make the world a better place. I lie. You lie. They lie. Everyone lies. But we can learn from our lies and use the truth in its place to make the world go round†¦for an honest reason of course.