I only realized this while growing up, and in addition to my life experiences, I have come to understand that there are some things I am ignorant of, but not as much as I used to be, because I am growing and learning with each passing day.
All I knew was truth and lies. And we were taught to practice the truth and also try as much as possible to avoid lies at all costs. I never knew there were types of lies and some situations that warranted them to be told.
There are lies, which are the normal lies, saying something that never happened or going against what has happened when it's actually clear that it happened. Then the “white lies” are something I can term as adult lies. This is when you have to come up with something so as to prevent other issues from coming up.
I have witnessed a lot of these lies before, and at first, it was kinda abnormal because I just wondered why such an elderly person would twist the situation in such a way instead of just telling the truth. But in the real sense, I realized that the positive effect is way better than the repercussions.
This is just another type of lie. I understand that this is also different from white lies. An example of white lies was a day when I was returning from the school campus and was heading home, when I got into a cab. I sat by the door side, and then the next two passengers came in. They happened to be friends. So they continued their discussion, and then it was all about one of them and his wife having issues.
The victim was telling his friend that he should tell his wife exactly what happened. But his friend denied. He said even if they are aware, they have to cook up something to respect the marriage. He already knew what his wife's reaction would be if they told the truth. I guessed that if their plans worked fine, then they told her some white lies.
And then my experience with lies of omission was when one of my cousins kicked the bucket. She was so young. She happened to be the first daughter of her grandmother. So grandma lost her mom just a few years back. Everyone saw how it affected her so much that she got so sick and took so long her to recover.
What made her recover from the pain was that she could see her granddaughter grow up to look like her mum. So she felt relieved. But now the granddaughter is no more. What do you think will happen if the news gets to her?
Everyone in the family decided that no one should break the news to her. And even if she asked, they should say she had travelled abroad and was doing fine there. This had been grandma's imagination about her all this time, and she has been doing fine ever since.
There are times when there is no need to tell the actual truth; it all depends on the situation.
This is my response to the HIVE LEARNERS weekly prompt in the hive-learners community for the Week 183 Edition 1, and the topic to be discussed is THE LIES OF OMISSION.
