A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on.
Winston Churchill
It's a small world I hear people say but then looking at how many people died during the outbreak of the pandemic I don't think the world is all that small. They're a lot of people in this world and yet there's still enough space to accommodate more people. So the world isn't small, it's just us humans lying to ourselves.
How Do You Feel When People Lie To You?
I've been around a lot of people during the two decades of my life and part of the first decade had been lived in complete ignorance. Growing up we believed anything we were told especially by the people we took in high esteem. Our parents actually shaped our lives with their words and actions and without having any choice we had to do whatever they told us.
Some of them lied about almost everything, some regular lies we heard were almost always sexually related. I heard 
For some of us, we were told that "all dancers are cultists", "if you allow someone cross you when you're lying down you'll become short", "if you spit on the ground and someone steps on your spit you'll have sore throat or your throat will start paining you", "if you pick any money on the ground you'll turn to an animal".
There were a lot of lies and for this part of our lives I know it is quite understandable that they were meant to keep us from harm and also stop us from making rash decisions. I wouldn't blame our parents who weren't too educated for still trying their best to ensure that they communicated some things to us in ways that were easier for them, planting that fear in our hearts really did the trick.
But then in the next decade of my life, my eye started to open, I started to meet new people and share in different opinions and backgrounds. I guess this is the point you really get to know how life really works. Now we were told lies by our teachers, brainwashing us and leading us down the same path. It was always easy for them to tell us that education is the key to success.
Yes, that wasn't a lie per say but what they lied about was painting it as the only key to success. They didn't tell us that there were other keys to achieving success. I kept on thinking that all the Successful men in the world were all educated and I was going to become as successful as they were immediately i finished my education.
Some of us had talents that would have made us really successful if only we had utilized them on time. I had a friend in junior secondary school who was a guru in making sketches. This guy didn't stress when it came to creating characters from his head and sketching comics. It was from him I got the drive to improve my drawing skills. But then, a teacher found a sketch book of his and beat the life out of him claiming he was wasting the books his parents bought for him.
That action action alone killed his spirit and made him stop drawing. He became moody, very quiet in class and stopped trying althougher. Drawing was his life, it was his joy and it was taken away from him because of their unprecedented actions. It affected me too because i surely didn't want to be a victim of such harsh treatment so I stopped althougher.
When people lie to you and you have no knowledge that their telling lies it's a different feeling althougher. I know I told petty lies when growing up, some of which i did to escape punishment. Untill my Senior Secondary school, I didn't have a heart for telling lies and manipulating people. It was against my principle and against how I was brought up.
But then i received the shock of my life!
In my Ss2, I started to notice that the people who told lies were the ones who received more favour, they were the ones the teachers loved the most. They were manipulative and unscrupulous, playing with everyone's minds and emotions. I hated them and vowed never to be like them. I preferred to live my life and enjoying whatever benefits came with being honest.
Gradually, without even knowing it, I started to feel anger. How would the ones who are the worst kinds of people be the ones getting all the praise and stealing all the girls. Most of the girls I had a crush on left immediately i told them how I felt. Was there anything wrong with telling the truth?. The world certainly is built on lies.
It is actually painful to find out that you're actually being taken for a fool and being manipulated. A lot of people derive joy in leading people down a wrong path and I know that they're reasons for this, some actually find pleasure in it and for others it is circumstances. Some are clouded by greed and the fact that they want to blend in. They want to be the talk of the town, showing off what they don't possess and at the end of they day they end up telling more lies.
I discovered yesterday that a close friend of mine had been feeding me a lot of lies about himself and some other things. I knew him as someone who didn't enjoy talking deep about his personal life and I also suspected that he told some lies. But this one was too much!, Imagine, I'd been believing something and then in a blink of an eye all that belief was proved wrong and made up.
I could have felt hurt and angry but surprisingly I didn't because this wasn't the first time I'd been lied to or manipulated. First real one that hurt me was when it came from my first and only best friend. That ordeal made me harden my heart a bit and I started to lose trust in humans. So when this one happened I wasn't shocked, I was just surprised how well he had successfully manipulated me and a host of others. I laughed, because I was impressed by his act.
But then I can't blame him too much, I've also been in situations where I had to tell lies, some started off as innocent lies untill it grew to something I couldn't control. I felt bad that I had to be pushed so much to that corner where I'll have to play with another person's emotions to survive. When I think about it i feel bad and I pray I don't find my self in such a situation again. I guess life is a use or be used playing field after all. The Squid Game actually opened my eyes to that even more.
A Little Piece Of Advice
Lies always get exposed!
This is what a lot of people fail to understand. Yeah, it feels good telling lies and leading others astray. You might even be at the top of the world, enjoying all the finest things in life as a result of your amazing craftiness. But then, don't be surprised when your lie gets exposed. All the things you've worked for will eventually get crumbled in a blink of an eye, the fame you've built, the fake people swarming around you, the friends and everything will seize to exist. At that moment you'll think back and wish you did better.
Don't expect too much from anybody!!
I try to live my life this way and I must say that it's the best way to go. No one seems to be as he really is, what you're seeing is what the other person shows to you. Try not to carry someone with too much expectation because that person will fail you, be it your close friend or family member. You can see the best in anyone, you can love and care for anyone but don't expect that the other person is expected to reciprocate. Leave your life as happy as you can and love others but never put all your expectations on one person.
Always expect Hurt
I've always tried to avoid being hurt or hurting others but then I don't always get my wish. It always ends up going south and I end up being hurt in the process or hurting someone else. I'm not saying we can't live our lives without getting hurt, obviously we can but then, be prepared for anything!. Always try to be ready for the worst, no matter how everything seems to be going well. I know when I tell others this they tend to disagree with me. I just feel that when you expect something, it doesn't hit you as hard as it'll do when it takes you by surprise.
Don't stop being good to people
I always live by the principle "what goes around comes around" and "do unto others what you what others to do unto you". As simple as they sound they actually work a great deal in our daily lives.
Don't you dare stop being good to people. Shower them with as much genuine love as you can, put a smile on someone's face and be happy. No matter how much pain you feel, you'll see that you'll start to feel better and open to happiness. Nothing beats seeing another person happy, it puts a certain joy in your heart that cannot be comprehended.
I know they're a lot of other things that can be done to avoid being hurt by the people you trust the most. I also know that they're a thousand and one reason that can be given to phantom telling a lie. I just hope we all aren't going to be exposed to a lot of hurt this year.
Thank you for reading through this post ❤️🥺.