I love a good dilemma, we have this thing in the Netherlands called Dilemmas on Tuesday where every week you have to choose between two impossible dilemmas. And this week we have one in the Weekend Experiences community! The question would be to lose the ability to lie forever or to believe everything you are ever told. My, speak about a conundrum!
The Issues Here
Now each of these statements comes with their own challenges. To start with losing the ability to lie, it would be hard not to be able to do any white lies! I would like to say lying is not a habit of mine, but that would be, well... lying!
Now believe it or not but my job actually comes with quite some white lies. I am a teacher and also a tutor in high school.
Here you see me and my tutor kids on a field trip in Germany. The thing is tutoring kids also means you are not always completely honest with them. Teenagers can be sensitive to what others think of them and it doesn't always help to tell them the raw truth. I often have kids with really bad grades ask me if they can still fix it. I always say yes, because they need that kind of motivation and they need to feel someone is in their corner. The reality is that I often feel very differently about it.
Now the problem with believing everything you hear also seems obvious: there is so much nonsense out there in the world! You would have to get off the internet really in order to make this work. Otherwise you would be convinced of all the conspiracy theories and nonsense everywhere! Besides that my partner also loves to make jokes and be sarcastic so I would constantly be confused in my own house!
My Choice
Well dilemmas are all about choosing, so here we go. I would choose to lose my ability to lie. Why? There are two reasons really:
First of all as some of you may know I am currently pregnant (very pregnant in fact, my due date was 2 days ago) and it seems a good as time as any to try not to lie. Now is a good time to start a good habit I guess. I would probably be viewed as the rudest person ever when not being able to lie anymore and I am sure not everyone will be happy with me but it is better than the alternative.
Secondly, believing everything you are told would simply be horrible. You would constantly change your mind, you would have to get off the internet and you would start to believe in some super outlandish things! Not even to mention that all sarcasm would be lost on you... No thank you!
Which would you choose in this dilemma? I am very curious to hear!