Live free or die

I'd rather lose with the truth than win with a lie.

Where I share pre-THINK published works

True Lies* (circa 2007)

“Liberty,” Camus said, “is the right not to lie.”

But how many of us are so independent that we can be unafraid of the potential ramifications of telling the truth, especially if it means losing a job, a spouse, a reputation? 

Being a truthful person isn’t just a question of whether you lie to others or not. It’s a question of whether your behavior and actions, and yes, words, are in alignment with your principles. 

Recently, a professional acquaintance whose advice I was seeking casually told me that I should be padding my expense accounts. “Everybody does it,” he said, “It’s expected.”

Has it come to that? Is society now so crass that we no longer feel a smidgen of shame about our compromised ethics, to the point that we discuss them with near strangers?

But two lies occurred in that conversation. His, and mine. 

His was the lie of workplace corruption and mine was the lie of career ambition. Because I hungered for my would-be mentor’s advice, I kept my opinion on padding expense accounts to myself.

This man was advising me to cheat, lie and steal, and I said nothing. Despite my belief that such behavior violates every possible code of professional and personal conduct. 

My silence ensured my complicity. The lied to became the liar.

But who is worse? I’ve written a lot of words about ethics in this column, and still, when confronted with this disgrace, I chose to keep my mouth shut. I decided it wasn’t worth falling out of the good graces of my erstwhile mentor by challenging him. 

Have I – have we -- all become such cowards that we ignore corruption even when it’s flagrantly flung in our faces?

These are the kinds of twistings of the truth that sicken the soul, not just of the self, but of society.

Has truthfulness become a phantom — just like the Old Man in the Mountain of New Hampshire? The photo above shows the profile of the “old man” before he eroded away. What would our faces look like if our lies eroded our features away?

I’ve had a mini-obsession with liberty – the kind that let’s you live truthfully and leaves you beholden to no man or woman or boss or bank, since I was a young girl and first visited New Hampshire. As the family car entered the Granite State, I was intrigued by the state motto stamped onto signs and appearing on the license plates of cars and trucks.

Photo courtesy of https://www.nhpr.org

That motto – “live free or die” planted the transcendentalist seeds in my spirit that would later grow into the fierce desire for freedom and self-reliance that has shaped my life. 

It would be a long time, and a lot of lies, unfortunately – told to me and by me --before I learned that the only sure path to living freely, comfortably, and honorably, is through a commitment to truth – in thought, word, and deed. 

Easier said than done. Truth is a damn slippery fellow sometimes, and it’s hard to always recognize what is true, much less speak and act on it at the right time and in the right way. I’ve failed at this many times and will again, I’m sure.

But I know this much is true:

I’d quit a job before I’d fudge an expense report; I’d give up writing before I’d pull my words from the Internet; and I’d rather lose with the truth than win with a lie.

In short, I’d rather live free … or die trying. 

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*This Vintage from the Vault essay was previously published in my long ago/far away "Reality Chick” weekly column, published in the Pelican Press newspaper, Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida from 2006 to 2008.