By Louis Avallone
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Americans average about 11 lies per week. There are major ones, and minor ones, of course. Maybe it’s an excuse on why you were late, or didn’t complete a task. Maybe it’s when a friend asks your opinion on a matter, and you wanted to be polite, more than you wanted to tell the truth.
Well, it turns out this may be impacting your health. Linda Stroh, a professor emeritus of organizational behavior at Loyola University in Chicago, said, “When you find that you don’t lie, you have less stress, and being very conflicted adds an inordinate amount of stress to your life.”
In fact, a recent study indicated that as individuals tell more lies, their physical and mental health declines. Conversely, as the number of lies decrease, their health improves.
Might this also be true for our nation’s health, as well? After all, are we lying to one another, instead of having an honest discussion about our national debt, the crippling costs of entitlement programs and the failures of our immigration system? We need to speak truthfully about why our schools are failing and why our healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and about the deterioration of the family and the whitewashing of religion from our national consciousness? Don’t we just need to put it out on the table, and talk openly? We do.
But instead, we find ourselves almost always conflicted, as we are reading, watching and listening ad naseum to elected officials and news reporting that often are anything but truthful.
What honest person believes Hillary Clinton’s or President Obama’s explanation about Benghazi? Who really believes the administration’s claim that it’s a positive sign that the unemployment rate went down .03 percent last month, when there are 92 million people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether, and are not looking for work at all?
Who doesn’t feel they were bamboozled for months and months and months when Obama promised, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.” And now four million Americans (so far) have now lost their healthcare plan, and it seems that the administration knew this would happen all along. Remember Nancy Pelosi’s pitch, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Goodness.
But this administration started out straight enough, right? The President promised in 2009, for example, that “My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”
Who, in their right mind, believes this has happened? Maybe it’s because, as some say, we can’t handle the truth. After all, our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy, and yet still so many folks seem oblivious and continue supporting policies and candidates that increase government spending, and they do this, year and after year.
But some may say telling the truth is not all that it is cracked up to be, either. Remember Walter Mondale’s 1984 pledge to raise taxes? He said, “Let’s tell the truth … Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” He lost in a landslide, of course, but you could also name many other reasons for that outcome, as well.
The bottom line is that honesty still means something in this world, and it’s not just an “American” thing, it’s a “human being” thing. And we remember it, or the lack of it, long after the details of its subject matter are long forgotten. Lyndon Johnson lied about Vietnam. Richard Nixon lied about Watergate. Bill Clinton lied about Monica Lewinsky.
Thinking back, it may be no coincidence that Billy Joel’s song, “Honesty” was nominated for “Song of the Year” at the Grammy Awards in 1980, right in the middle of that year’s presidential campaign. As the song goes, “Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you. But if you look for truthfulness, you might just as well be blind.” Winston Churchill, although likely not a big Billy Joel fan, said it another way: “The truth is heavy, therefore few care to carry it.”
No, in the end, it’s not that the American people cannot handle the truth; it’s that they shouldn’t be expected to manage their lives in the absence of it.