At the end of each day, you might wish to look in the mirror and evaluate the reflection that stares you in the face. What do you see as you gaze upon your image in the glass? Do you see a person you admire? Some questions you could pose to yourself: Did you do your best today? Did you do your utmost to help others, instead of making their day a little bit harder? Are you proud of your efforts? Are you truly working to make the world a better place?Evaluating your answers to those questions can lead to much progress on your life path. And each day, little by little, you will see steady progress on the way to the top of your personal mountain of self-growth.
We can be fairly certain that we all make mistakes as human beings. Although we try our hardest to do things right, we sometimes fail. There is no shame in making an error. Just be sure to learn from your misstep and do your best to avoid repeating it.
But what happens when the misstep is not a small, harmless one, but a truly egregious action that brings pain and hardship - even death - to those who are affected by it?
Such can be the case with a lie.
The price of a lie can be enormous. One small untrue statement can wreak the worst kind of havoc across a nation and the entire world. Mix several untruths together and you come up with a bubbling brew that is noxious to the extreme.
And although you might be able to soften a lie by calling it a "misstatement" or some other such euphemism, the untruth still stands - naked in all of its ingloriousness.
You might recognize some of these lies: "Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." "Iraq caused the September 11th attacks." "Iraq wanted to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger to make nuclear weapons." Those kinds of lies were used to sell the Iraq war to the American people, and to the rest of the world. As we know now, those lies did their job, far too well.
Ask yourself this question: What is the cost of those lies? How many have suffered, and will continue to suffer, because of the spreading of those lies?
Unfortunately, the use of falsehoods has become the way of a confused world. We know that corporations, governments, and individuals stretch the truth on a regular basis. But when someone lies in order to start a war, he has perpetrated the ultimate crime on humanity. And how he can bear to look at himself in the mirror is beyond my comprehension.
© Kathy Sanborn
LC Contributing Author
All Rights Reserved
