Six Questions to Ask Yourself Before Telling a Lie

Not every lie is bad.

Some lies keep people happy, and keep our relationships strong.

Most of the time, honesty really is the best policy.

Before we do, we should always evaluate the situation, and the person we’re dealing with.

Here are six questions to help determine whether a lie is worth telling.

What Is Your Goal?

Instead of being critical, reinforce the positive.

Some things will hurt worse coming from you than they will someone else.

Will they find a reason to feel betrayed by you instead?

Is it even your business to get involved in?

These are all possibilities.

In these cases, it could be better to give the situation time to work itself out.

Sometimesbeing honest will result in unnecessary pain, whilea white lie can save everyone the trouble of feeling bad.

Be careful to notice when it’s more generous to tell a lie.

It turns out even the smallest lie can cause lasting stress.

Upon returning, she asked some students how they felt.

Most said “fine,” which was obviously a lie because they were clearly annoyed.

Everyone else opted to donate about one third of their potential raffle winnings.

Again, cognitive dissonance reared its head when the conflict of lying came to mind.

We ignore white lies because they seem harmless.

They rarely resurface in conversation, but while their future effects are subtle they do exist in profound ways.

Most of the time it’s not.

Sometimes honesty really is the best policy, but it’ll probably hurt.

Often, people lie because they care so much that they don’t want to hurt anyone.

Sometimes all it takes is todeliver the message differently.

Think this over before you decide to lie or bend the truth.

Ask yourself what you’d want to hear if you were in their shoes.

This is especially valuable if you and your friend have similar views.

I didn’t mean to hurt you."

Sometimes it works out, but other times it really doesn’t.

Photos byArnau Amengual Bonnin,55Laney69,Pascal, andJD Hancock.