BLOG 278: The LIE discovered.

 

 'If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.' Mark Twain 

I have long said that the truth is the ONE version of any story told that doesn't change in the telling. You know why? Because when further details emerge they corroborate the story told, they are easy to contextualise because they actually happened. It's rather more difficult  (some say impossible) a task to achieve with a lie. 

Now I am not saying I don't lie. Of course I do... we all do. Sometimes not telling the truth is the right thing to do. BUT it is fair to say that once that lie leaves our lips we are vulnerable for the truth to get out.  

Even a casual lie can catch us later, especially when we give an affirmative answer when the truth is we have no opinion at all. 

I was at a bridal shop with a friend and I cannot recall how many dresses she had tried on. True, in a bridal shop you get a comfy sofa, refilled glasses of champagnes and a selection of nibbles while this excruciatingly long process takes place... but after a while one white dress is the same as another white dress and you start to feel your own lifeforce evaporate. So there's Ginny on the podium twirling in yet another confection of organza...or was it lace? And I had stopped caring. "So what do you think this one... or dress four?" she asks.I had no idea what dress four was. I didn't care much for the one she was in, now I came to look at it ,so I affirmed that dress four was the way to go. We left soon after, which was great because my butt cheeks were numb.  Come the wedding day... Gah!.  I didn't like the dress at all. I rationalised it didn't matter as she must have had plenty of fittings and got to make up her own mind that this was the one for her. But the dress was a conversation that came up often at the wedding and she kept on accrediting her choice to my input. Okay, she was happy with her dress - but I spent the entire wedding caught in my own lie, which was uncomfortable to say the least. But at least I guess no harm (to the bride) was done. 

Not so the case when we are caught when we have a sick day from work  -simply by the activity done without thinking on our social networks. . 

I recall a my friend Cole very cleverly getting doctors note to corroborate his extended paid absence from work because of a particularly virulent man flu virus.His employers received the note, wished Cole a swift recovery but advised him he was under no pressure to return until he was 100% restored to full health. Which was totally acceptable until the girl he was out with one night tagged him in her 'morning after the night before' post on her micro blogging site. Then Cole instinctively replied thanking her for a great night. Micro-blogging is notoriously unsecure - anyone can read your posts, and employers in particular do like to keep an eye on the conduct of their employees on social media. Cole's employers were rather befuddled how it was that a man whose medical practitioner felt was unfit to leave the house for 21 days was able to party-hardy on day 17 of his recovery period and yet not feel well enough to return to work..After due consideration of this befuddlement, and Cole's daring second doctors note - they felt it best that he extend his time away from their company permanently. 

Sometimes we are unaware of the trail the truth leaves behind us when we are living lies. 

A friend of mine was moving up north following the breakdown of her marriage. Her husband of five years had told her he recently had a brief fling with a female colleague who had become pregnant so he had to do the honourable thing. (Though to be honest I always thought the honourable thing would have been to stick to his pre-exisiting marriage vows - but I digress). Anyway, there is Amy heartbroken, marriage over and solicitors telling her that her only choice is to buy Richard out of the marital home or let him buy her out or to sell it and split the profit and start again. So she does the latter and because she couldn't bear the thought of ever running into Richard again (London can be a very small town when it wants to be)... moves back to her home town of Lincoln. So there is Amy, packing up the house that she and Richard bought back in 2009... and uncovers a whole lot of further details that had melted into the recesses of the home during day to day living. Turns out Richard's brief fling with his female colleague had a paper trail of forgotten receipts and souvenirs dating back to the first year of his marriage to Amy... not only had Richard lied, their entire marriage was a lie. 

And that’s the wonderful thing about the truth. 

It is always out there waiting to be discovered. 

Discovery of the truth is as empowering as it can be disabling. It depends who finds it. 

It was pretty disabling when I found out that Dress Four was not something I would ever endorse - but I just had to live with that as hurting Ginny with the truth was not an option. Which of course spawned more lies. That casual lie came back and bit me hard.

I think Cole's employers found it rather empowering to terminate his employment after he lied about his fitness to work. I have noted that Cole is less cavalier about micro-blogging sites and is almost undetectable on other social networks now, so maybe he feels empowered too! 

As for Amy - it was disabling to know that four out of five years of your marriage were lies, but I do hope that the increased divorce settlement in the light of the discovery of the truth is empowering for her as she embraces her new life in Lincoln.. 

But in general - I reckon the teller of lies HAS TO feel disabled by the experience. It has got to be nerve wracking wondering if you have got away with it. Sometimes you just will never know if someone has discovered the truth but chose not to tell... but 

They. 

Know. 

What a horrible way to live... always waiting for that other shoe to drop. 

To be honest there is only one item to put on today's JaxWorld List: 

• Tell the truth (it's easier) 

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BLOG 277 - Stiff upper lip

"We  British do not want to be mamby pamby whimps. Crying at the drop of a hat. There is enough wet soft dris as it is." Jonny Norfolk  - Blogger 

Being British means we have fortitude. 

In fact we think of this as our greatest national characteristic. 

We operate on the idea that what ever is happening to you is probably happening worse to someone else somewhere - so out of loyalty to this person (mythical or otherwise) can we all please keep our emotions in check and keep on carrying on. Repeating the effects of your situation upon your emotional well being is frankly not part of our modus operati. 

In fact we absolutely never ever embarrass each other with outbursts of emotions (known locally as "just going on about it"). So we put up and shut up and don't make a fuss. 

As a nation we are often accused of taking this rather socially considerate trait to extremes. We don't like to bother a doctor with a minor issue such as our lack of well being. (My American cousins always find this absurd, for what more important task could a doctor have than to attend to someone who is unwell) But physical or mental well being we'd rather not bother a busy man like a doctor. 

And we certainly wouldn't bother our nearest and dearest with such a display of a lack of fortitude.  I jest not, it has been known of those in the last stages of liver failure blame the jaundiced skin tone on a spray tan gone wrong than embarrass anyone with the information that death just may be knocking.  We  are British  and as such we just don't like to bother people with the less pleasant sides of life. We put up and shut up and never embarrass ourselves or each other with demonstrations of weakness. 

Fortitude - aka the Stiff Upper Lip, that we UK residents are so well known for has always been seen to be our secret weapon.  It's what got us through the Blitz... hell the Roman invasion if you wanna play history top trumps! We've been putting up and shutting up since the dawn of time probably. 

It's not that we don't acknowledge bad stuff, but we don't like to be seen to be dwelling on it. What we do is express an appropriate degree of concern and sorrow and then talk about something else. We express a brief emotional vacuous acknowledgement then quickly draw a line under it and never mention it again. We've always done that - it is the British way. 

To delve deep into issues...well that's all just a little bit embarrassing. We can't do embarrassing, we like only to be viewed as Doing Well. 

Doing Well in the United Kingdom is demonstrating an almost super human ability to not lose control. We quite literally would rather die than not be thought of in this way.

I imagine that every time a village was razed to the ground by Viking raiders the survivors would pick each other up, pat each other on the back and shrug muttering "Vikings huh? What can you do!" and carry on. Other nations may form an underground or resistance... not us Brits. We raise our chins, square our shoulders and simply do what ever we were doing before misfortune came. We do not let it taint us. We carry on regardless.

And to be honest we are rather vain about it. Being British means we don't 'go on' about something that requires an emotional response. Fortitude ...we have that in buckets lined from the back door to the shed and back. We put up and shut up. And of course we carry on. 

And so it comes as some surprise that this, our most valued national characteristic, has recently come under much fire. Apparently we are killing ourselves by exercising our national vanity of bottling things up. 

Our obsession with trying to play down the negativity of certain situations turns out to be much more harmful rather than helpful. And this is never truer than when it comes to being in control of your emotions.Convincing yourself that things are not as bad as they seem is totally unhelpful as in fact this stoic approach to distress actually prevents us from trying to rectify the situation. 

Therapists view the stiff upper lip as 'reframing'. What we do is take a negative situation, reframe it by looking for the positive in it and say "That wasn't so bad there is always someone worse off'. 

• Thus the loss of a leg isn't as bad as a snapped spinal cord. 
• The death of a grandparent is compared to a cricket score. 
• And we absolutely measure any 1st world issues against the daily struggles of a third world nation. 

This ridiculous 'Top Trumps' system of devaluing genuine loss or pain is at the heart of our response to any misfortune we come to hear of. This justifies us not 'bothering' anyone else with our issues. However by doing so we do not put in place active strategies like problem-solving and seeking social support. 

QUICK BRIT TEST: Come on be honest... they last time you did one of those home cancer checks... you found something didn't you? But you rationalised it away. Didn't you?... after all it was probably nothing, you maybe did the check wrong, you know what... you'll ask next time you see the doctor? 

This mindset is why we Brits don't bother the doctor... and die in statistically much higher amounts of treatable if reported early illnesses than our commonwealth buddies like Canada and our European neighbours like Sweden. We  are even worse with our mental health and don't even bother each other... so our suicide rates top the charts. 

We think we are being honorably decent by not bothering each other.

But basically we just look each other in the eye - and lie. 

And where is the honour in lies?

Did you know that your average Brit says “I’m fine” an average eight times a month – when they could be anything but. And of course the classic: “I’m OK” - us Brits trot that deception out an average of six times a day, making it the most common lie you will hear on this sceptered isle.

.

Basically out of every 10 Brits you will talk to, 6 will be regularly putting on a brave face to avoid being a burden, while 3 will always consider it embarrassing to show you any signs of weakness.

Nearly two-thirds of all working adults in the UK admit to having put on a brave face at work and four in ten confess they bury big problems. One in three people feel they had no one to share serious concerns with, while two-thirds of Brits in relationships will hide health concerns from their partners and families. The most common reason given for not talking about these issues: Fear of Embarrassment. And not of our own.... we are most concerned about embarrassing the person who has to hear us! 

Surely these levels of deception cannot be healthy???

I was fortunate enough to have sessions with a Canadian counselor when I entered my current hyperbole of emotional trauma. She observed: Putting on a brave face can often be a default mode to anyone brought up in the UK. However this denial impacts a persons well-being. Addressing your nurtured reluctance as a nation to open up about these concerns and seek appropriate help can greatly increase your peace of mind and reduce the risks of the problem worsening. No one should be afraid to talk about issues that worry them and ask for support to get through the difficult times. 

And whilst that is all well and good for a Canadian observer to say.... breaking the mold and talking about the issues that expose vulnerability or letting the world know that you are at your limit is extremely hard for anyone born and brought up in the UK. We just haven't the national wiring to deal with it. 

Our wiring is thus; 

Put up and shut up.... worse things happen to someone somewhere surely, so now please may we all now continue to act in a manner that makes further talk unnecessary. Thank you.  

As a nation we still believe that Keep on Keeping on means that you will be rewarded by being thought of as Doing Well.

After all.... there is absolutely ALWAYS someone worse of than you.

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