Stealing

Stealing is one of the most universal and heinous crimes that exists. When one lies, he steal an individuals right to the truth. When one kills, he steals a family's son, daughter, father, or mother -not to mention the murdered individual's right to life. When someone commits rape, they steal the victim's right to their own body and sexuality. When one takes property that does not belong to them they steal the victim's time, energy, and very possibly his lively-hood. By the thief doing so, it's easy to extrapolate the situation to a theoretical small business owner's scantily orderved table. By taking the products that he's paid money for in order to resale them to you, thieves literally steal the food off of his table. By plagiarizing the work of another without their permission the cheater is stealing the essence of someone who worked hard to produce a unique intellectual product- which is quite possibly the most valuable commodity on the planet.

I'm proud to say that I haven't had a serious physical theft experience with someone. However I am a consummate liar. And it took practice to become this way. I first began to practice the unsavory skill of telling falsehoods when I was in middle or maybe even elementary school. It really started with the age old question of:
"Did you do your homework?", to which my reply was always along the lines of:
"Yes".
I lied. And I got better at it. And I lied more and more about more and more things until by the middle of high school my whole life was literally built upon a shaky maze-like tower of untruths. Lying was a compulsion now. Ever question in a casual conversation has a million possible answers. It's not that it didn't matter to me if the question only had one or even a few true answers. What mattered was rolling the dice, and adding another layer to my labyrinthine hyper-ruminated upon tower of lies. I literally was past the point of having to do conscious mental exercises in order to remember all the ins and outs of my various deceits.

Until the webbing that held together my tower began to fray. And nearly my whole life came crashing down around me in a matter of weeks. I learned lies didn't just hurt the people I told them At the end of the  day I was not living an authentic life. Not only had I stolen the right to truth from every single important person in my life a multitude of times. I had robbed myself of the experience of not feeling like my life was a constant anxiety-riddled balancing act. I had to rebuild every relationship that I broke. Starting with those involving my family. I had completely lost the trust of my father by not telling him that "No, I haven't done my homework". Because what that one little lie turned into was a leviathan of deception.

I came to recognize that in the beginning it was inaction and fear that lead me to lie. The procrastination and inaction that resulted in me failing classes or not completing other responsibilities naturally lead me to fear being discovered. Especially as a two sport athlete who overcompensated with the failings and imbalances in his life with a fanatic devotion to all things running. I went through a period of telling truth. A lot of truth. And catching myself when I lied compulsively and telling the person I was speaking with that- no that didn't actually happen that way. The compulsions to tell random useless little lies are dead these days. I'm just not willing to cause others or myself the pain of interacting with, or being- and inauthentic person.

 I still tell lies. But they develop in my head only with conscious thought. And mostly they're very small white lies that will save me a lot of trouble at the cost of what I observe to in all practicality be nothing. Or, more often, the lies I tell are to protect the people I care about. The truth cuts deep, and is just as dangerous as the darkest lie. Is this moral? No. Every untruth ever told had robbed the victim of their inalienable right to the truth, and that isn't fair. But who's to decide whether someone deserves a stinging truth or a comforting lie.