By Erendy Torres | Staff Writer |

Honesty is dead. It’s not valued anymore.

We are hypocrites when we say we value honesty and are bigger hypocrites when we say we don’t lie.

We are selfish to expect honesty from others, normally don’t think twice about lying.

We hide the truth from others because we find it convenient. However, after every lie told, we confuse ourselves trying to remember what versions of “the truth” we told to those we’ve interacted with.

“[And] that’s the point. We are all liars, and we all make excuses for our ignorance of the unconscious,” stated licensed California psychologist Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond.

Even important people that are considered respectable status, like politicians and doctors, lie. Richmond shares a story on his website, “A Guide to Psychology and its Practice,” of a time he admitted to lying during jury duty, claiming that “even lawyers will lie to further their careers. Even judges will lie if it serves them interest.”

Richmond stated that the court fell silent with his declarations. A defense attorney asked him if  ‘even he was lying,’ and he replied, “Yes, even I am lying.” Richmond was suspended from the case.

“‘Truth is nothing more than what we choose to believe in the moment. Our culture is all a fraud. But hardly anyone wants to admit it,” stated Richmond.

As a culture, we have imposed the idea that honesty brings harmony in any kind of relationship. But if that idea was true, why is it hard for people to handle the truth?

It’s simple. Truth hurts. No one actually wants to know they look fat in certain shirts. No one wants to hear their significant other fell out of love.

I know because I’ve been there. No, I wasn’t the victim, and I wasn’t the one being lied to. I was the liar.

I was dishonest to a person that loved me no matter what. I fell out of love and I failed to tell him. My thought was, “if I tell him, I will hurt him.”

Instead, I carried that lie around with me, making the situation worse. All I did was hurt him.

But I was a hypocrite, I didn’t want him lying to me.

When we lie, we don’t only do it to appease others and avoid disagreements, we also do it for our own benefit. We lie because we don’t want to show the world our mistakes.

“Not telling the truth is associated with fear of showing the world who you are,” said CSUSB psychology professor, Dr. Kelly Campbell.

“[Lying] comes from a place of not being accepting of yourself—not feeling valuable just the way you are. You’re scared people are going to judge you if they know the truth,” continued Campbell.

During my past personal encounter, all I thought about was how I was going to be perceived by others.

However, no matter how much we try, there will never be complete honesty. We will always conceal some truths for our own advantage.

It’s not about whose feelings are hurt, it’s about protecting our image. But whose image is there to protect when everyone is already a hypocrite claiming to value honesty?