Personal Essay: The Truth Hurts

He Said She Said
The truth hurts. The truth is what leaves tear streaks down raw, red cheeks at three in the morning when the world is too quiet to be so skewed. The truth becomes the aching feeling of longing in one’s chest when the only question you’ll ever need the answer to is: “How did things go wrong?” The truth never seems to hurt any less than the moment it was uttered from frowning lips, read off the text message on your phone, or seen in the eyes of the one person who thought you deserved nothing less. In short, the truth hurts, but lying does just as much damage, if not more. While it may be easy to weave around the truth, sometimes lying is what acts as the fatal blow that tips the scale between trust and distrust, leaving someone in the dust to try and figure out to what extent they’ve been deceived. It seems silly to be constantly truthful because, hey, a relationship couldn’t possibly be damaged due to a secret you swore to never tell. It’s not like anyone really cares if you did this or didn’t do that. But soon, one tiny white lie becomes two, three, four more and you’ve lost all control of what was meant to be an easily solvable conflict. Suddenly, you’re not sure what you did or when you did it, but you find …show more content…
From those years of being exposed to this religion, I’ve had one saying drilled into my head too many times to count: lying is a sin. (Hell, it was rare for me to go a day without hearing some old, condescending voice tell me that God knows all.) Being the young and impressionable youth I was, I went along with what I was told and eventually truly believed in it. Now, sixteen years old and agnostic—my formative years were not as smooth as you’d think—I’ve found that, while there is truth to this statement, there’s more to it. Lying isn’t good, but not doing anything to stop it is