I can’t count the amount of times I have asked or been asked the question “how are you?” and got the reply “good” no matter how they actually are. Modern day society believes that lying helps us live our lives that we need to lie to be happy. That is not true; the old saying honesty is the best policy is true.

Not long ago a friend of mine who just got her graduate license started driving all of her friends around at once in her car. She wasn’t allowed to do that because, by law, new graduates can only drive with one person who is not an immediate family member. She hid the fact that she drove her friends around from her parents because she didn’t want them to get mad and in her mind she believed it would be better to lie. One day, she had three friends in her car and she had to stop by her house to pick something up. Instead of parking in her driveway she parked in front of the neighbor’s house so that her parents wouldn't see the three friends in the car. Her mom asked her why she parked the car in front of the neighbor’s house and not in front of their house. She told her it’s because she was in a rush and didn’t think it through. While she was in her room grabbing her stuff, her mom went out to the car and at first she saw one girl sitting in the front seat and a blanket with bumps and indents in it lying across the back. She opened the door and removed the blanket to find two girls laying down whom immediately started explaining and whining to try and get themselves out of trouble. Because my friend lied and didn’t tell her parents that she had more than one person in the car she lost her car for a month and was grounded for two weeks. Her parents later told me that had she of just told them the truth they wouldn’t have punished her at all, but just would’ve told her to not do it again.

Everybody has lied at one point that is a fact. 70% of Canadians tell their first lie of the day within an hour of being awake. I know that living a life completely honest seems impossible, but it isn’t. This summer I conducted an experiment where I didn’t lie for the whole summer. It was incredibly difficult but people noticed, they would even comment on my honesty and it encouraged me to keep living my life as honest as I can, even when the summer ended. I do still tell the occasional lie and I am not going to try and justify why I tell these lies because I don’t know why but it is human nature to lie and all we can do is try our best. Even though we know that our lies will end badly because Abraham Lincoln said “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar”. Only 12% of adults admit to telling lies, so there is the other 88% that lies about the fact that they are liars. Studies have shown that people who admit they lie are on average 28 times more honest than those who claimed to have never lied in the first place.

The majority of lies told on a daily basis are what we call “white lies”. 80% of women admit to occasionally telling “harmless” white lies to comfort people. They don’t hurt anyone is something I have heard people say so many times. That is not entirely true. Of course there are harmless white lies like hiding the fact that you are planning a surprise party for someone’s birthday, but there are white lies that can hurt people. For example if you tell someone who is very obese that they look like they are in great shape, all you have done is encouraged their problem and in other words played a part in the reasoning behind why they will die younger. My uncle used to be obese and since he was such a nice person nobody ever wanted to upset him so nobody would ever comment on his weight. A 12” pizza layered with extra cheese, bacon, hamburger and peppers and a 10” garlic fingers with bacon bits and extra donair sauce. That sounds like a good meal for a family of four. This was a regular sized meal for someone of my uncle’s size. Two years ago my uncle had a new born son whom he loved very much, one day at our house my dad told him if he didn’t start losing weight he wouldn’t live long enough to see his son graduate high school. At that moment my uncle realized that what my father was saying was true and he turned his life around. He started eating healthy, playing sports and going to the gym daily. Now he has lost over 100 pounds and is still losing and it is all because someone had the courage to say the honest thought that everyone else was thinking but were too scared to say anything because they didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Now it is up to you to decide whether you are going to lie whenever it is most convenient to do so, or will you put the effort into being honest. Remember honesty is the best policy, wise people don’t say these words because it sounds nice but because they are the best way to go about living life. When people ask you how are you? Will you reply with good or tell them how you are actually feeling because I know there is no one that can honestly describe their emotions as just a simple “good”.