By David Hegg

Have you ever noticed no one has to teach a child to lie? Lies seem to be part of the natural expression of the human heart, and as we age, we become more adept at lying. “Are you almost done with that project?”

“Uh, yes, uh, I’m just putting the finishing touches on it.” But the truth is you’ve forgotten all about it, and now need to hustle to align your reality with your lie. We all do it, and we all do it for reasons whose ugliness is only surpassed by the ethical necessity of looking at them and learning how to push them out of our lives.

Lying is a common practice. We’re told 95% of all Americans lie at least twice a day, and the other 5% — you guessed it — lie about it! We lie about inconsequential things, but they are still lies. When asked if we’ve read that new book or heard the latest business news, we want to be considered “in the know,” so we respond with a slightly nuanced “yes.” But the nuance is just the coat our lie wears to go undetected. We lie by exaggerating, we lie when we fabricate statistics (like the spurious one at the top of this paragraph), and we........

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