Secrets And Lies

"Happiness lies in your own hand, It took me much too long to understand, How it could be, Until you shared your secret with me" Madonna - Secret

"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies" Fleetwood Mac - Little Lies

Two flaws of human nature is that we tend to keep secrets and tell lies. These two traits both play their roles, but can also cause a lot of problems when things get uncovered. Lets explore how each of these affect us, and how they both combine to bring out the worse outcome.

Secrets, we all have them. I defy anyone (who doesn't have a mental disability) to say that they don't have secrets. If anyone said that, I would say that they are lying. Unless you have a very bad mental disability that stops your brain from functioning "normally", you will have secrets.

Each person is an individual and we have things that we wish to keep to ourselves or only share with selected people. A secret in itself is not harmful, it's only when that secret gets exposed. And exposed it usually gets. The problem with humans keeping secrets is that we're not good at it. We want to share the secret, share the joy or share the burden. It's hard to keep a secret as it's a big weight to hold up. The burden of knowing something that affects others, or affects others judgement of you is not an easy thing to carry.

This is where lying comes into it. Usually, to cover up secrets, we tell lies. The lies could be small, or white lies as people call it, or it could be something huge such as "Brad, you're actually adopted". If you've seen Liar Liar starring Jim Carrey, telling the truth all the time also is not a good strategy. This is because humans are emotional and will take offence to things that are not favourable to us. And the truth tends to be less than favourable. So lying has it's place. But you have to pick and choose when to lie and how servere the lie is. People tend to tell the truth to others that they trust. It's a sign of respect and a way to bond closer. However, when lies are caught out, the consequences are usually not good. People can get hurt or into trouble. Relationships can break down and all parties involved may not trust each other again.

When you combine both secrets and lies in the workplace, well you have a volatile mix that can explode in everyone's faces. The fact that we spend so much time with our work mates, we may think that we can trust them. But really, you are only seeing people from one perspective. To really see what someone is like, you need to see them in their natural environment. It's like David Attenborough watching the real way lions interact in the jungle as opposed to watching caged lions in a zoo. So we're often lured into a false sense of trust and share secrets with work mates, that can then lead to lying, which can then turn around to bite us. We have to keep in mind that our work mates can also be our competitors, each striving to move up in the corporate ladder, and some willing to use secret information to their advantage.

In summary, I think we need to be wary of what secrets we share with others at work. You have to be definite that whoever you are sharing the secret with is someone you can trust. It's always easy to spill a secret than keep one. It's the human nature in us that makes us feel superior to share something unknown to someone else. I admit that I do it too, but you have to know where the line is between things that you can share and things that you can't. It's better not to tell than to risk it exploding in your face. Lying is something that should be treated with even more care. A small lie is probably ok, but trying to be someone you're not can only ever end in disaster. People can see through bullshit very quickly and you will lose the respect of others very fast.