Dad’s Guide To Life: Every Lie Ever Told Boils Down to FEAR

…Good morning boys. Today, I will share the origin story. This story should give you an idea of the definitive choice that pushed my life off the tracks, so to speak. I have to add, that in order to find my path, I needed to “go off track” to begin with. Without this moment in life, there would be a totally different version of myself that wouldn’t have had you. Imagine that, without things happening exactly the way they happened, there would be no you. That’s pretty beautiful. On the larger scope, without the cosmic events of the universe happening as they exactly happened, there would be no us to speak of. Let’s get started.

I preface this story with my recollection of dates and times are terrible, and my years won’t make sense. I was born in 1978. From 1978–1993, I had a pretty “normal” life. I was born, grew up, hung out with neighborhood friends, had fun, had bullies, had snack time, nap time, bed time, family time and a whole lot of other awesome stuff in between. Schedules weren’t really a thing then. We could play outside without telling mom and dad where we were, as long as we were home when the street light went out. I played little league baseball, had a paper route, and had the very first video games to ever come into existence. I took everything for granted, because I was a kid. My mom and dad would live forever, my gramma’s and grampa’s would live forever, and nothing bad could ever happen. Grammy and Grampy were young parents. Until I got to highschool, I never once questioned what I did to their life and they did everything they could to raise me right. I always had a big family that we visited, a group of people who made me feel accepted in the world. I don’t even remember ever feeling sadness, until I was ten that is.

I grew up in a place called Brockton, MA. I had two groups of friends by the time I was ten. The good kids, and the bad kids. The good kids were genuinely nice people, and we would hang out and play video games together, play manhunt around the neighborhood, and pretend to be rock bands in my friend’s back yard before shooting hoops until the street lights came on. The bad kids, well, they would let me swim in their pool, and let me drink peach wine coolers their mother left outside, and then they’d push me around for awhile, nothing crazy at first, and then we’d throw tennis balls at cars from the woods until the street lights came on.

There came a day, the bad kids, and the good kids weren’t around, so I hung out with some school friends, a kid Kendric, and a girl named Renee. I had a huge crush on Renee’s friend Tracy, as big a crush can get for a ten year old kid. We went swimming at Renee’s house, and Tracy and I were swimming while Kendric taught us how to draw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I asked Tracy if she had a boyfriend, and she asked me if I wanted to be her boyfriend. I said yes sheepishly. She then pulled my hair and told me I was too ugly for a girl like her. I learned two things in that moment in time.

1. Kids are nasty assholes to each other. Don’t take it personally, especially if you’re under the age of 20.
2. Girls are the most confusing creatures on earth. I mean, why pull my hair?

Within a few minutes of this event, I packed up my stuff and walked home. It was about a ten minute walk, and on the way, I passed by one of the “Bad” kid’s house, Sean N. So I stopped by and knocked on the door. Sean answered and asked if I wanted to come in and play video games. He said, “My mom’s not home, want to drink her wine coolers?” So I said sure! I went inside, we had a wine cooler or two. After a few hours, I started out the front door to go home, and Sean said, “See yah later Jay, by the way, I peed in all those wine coolers.” I asked, “Every one of them?”, and he nodded and gave me the middle finger.

1. Reminder: Kid’s are nasty assholes to each other.

As I walked home, I found a yellow lighter on the sidewalk. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. A few blocks from my house, I was passing one of the “good” guy’s houses. So I knocked on the door and my friend David answered the door. I said, “Hi dave, I have a lighter, want to play with it?” He had never seen a lighter before. So we went out behind his shed, and started lighting the dry tree needles on fire and stomping them out. We did this for about an hour. Then the street lights started to come on, so I said bye, and started walking home. I smelled like fire.

I got home, and my mom was cooking dinner, dad was doing some sort of project in the yard. I went up to my room. After about an hour or so, my dad called me downstairs. He asked me where I went this afternoon, and of course I lied through my teeth. I told him I just went to Chris’ to play video games. Chris was one of the older “good” guys. He looked at me, he said, “you smell funny…like matches, do you have matches”? I could only say, “No”. A few minutes later, he let me go outside and mess around out back. I tossed my wiffle ball at a made up strike zone for about an hour, and then I went inside. My dad was waiting. He said, “Where’d you go this afternoon.” I replied the same way. “Chris’” He said, “Yah, why do you smell funny.” I smelled myself. My shirt smelled like a raging inferno happened INSIDE of it. I said, “No I don’t”. He showed me a book of matches and a yellow lighter. “These yours”? “No”, I replied. Then he dumped the big reveal on me. “Mr D. called, his shed burnt down.” Remember how I told you I really don’t remember feeling much sadness? Well, I felt all the sadness on the planet in that moment. I knew what came next. Every electronic device in my room was removed in the blink of an eye, and I was living in my room for the next 30 days. Just like that, I had no friends after school, no books, no games, and nothing to do except do homework, eat dinner, write “I will not play with matches” 1000 times daily for 30 days while my father watched me write it, do the dishes, take out the trash, sit in my room quietly reading, fall asleep. There were no tablets or cell phones or computers back then. When you had you’re stuff taken away, you had books and thoughts. That was it. I felt horrible. We will continue the next age of reckoning in the next story. This brings me to lesson numbero UNO.

Always tell the truth. You will LIE because you are afraid of the consequences if someone knows the truth. LIES are ALWAYS the result of fear. Lies can only go on for so long. When you tell one lie, you have to keep lying to cover up the evidence that will always pile up against your story. See, one day would come, that we went over to Chris’ house as a family, and my dad will say, “was Jay any trouble when he came over the other day?”, and Mr. A would say, “Hmph, I never saw him come here the other day.” Then what? Now Dad starts to dig. Where DID you go if you went to Chris’ and nobody here saw you that day? Now I would have to lie again, to cover up the fact I didn’t go where I said I went. You know who always finds out if you’re lying? Everyone. When you lie more and more, they always find out the truth. ALWAYS. The consequences get worse with age. Lying to a person always makes them feel better in the short term. Over time, as they discover the truth, it hurts more and more over time and eventually, a long term lie, will ruin everything you tried to cover up out of fear.

HONESTY, however, is the opposite. You want to tell the truth. No matter what. There are many reasons to do so. Telling the truth right up from HURTS a lot sometimes. But its honorable, and respectful, and the pain doesn’t last very long for the receiver of the the truth. There are short term consequences for honesty, for example, in the burning shed story, If I had just told me dad where I went and that we were setting fires behind the shed, I still would have been punished, but I’m pretty sure my dad would have been a tad more lenient. I think he went so hard because I lied to his face, and that hurts a person. When you get older, you’ll be tempted to do things that will hurt other people, and you will do them, because we all do it. The best thing you can do is be honest with the people you care about. At least they know you respect them enough to tell the truth. Honesty will strengthen bonds of friendship. Always give your honest opinion/truth when asked for it. Don’t sugar coat things or make something up because you’re afraid of how the truth will make someone feel. They will thank you for being honest even if it hurts early on. They will realize you told the truth and be grateful someday. The truth will end relationships quickly if they are wrong. LIES drag relationships out, and slowly degrade trust until both sides of a relationship hate each other’s guts. Honesty is like ripping off the bandaid.

Most importantly, honesty leads to a fulfilling and free life. Honesty is not just about telling the truth, it’s about being real with yourself and others about WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU WANT, and WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOUR LIFE. Honesty sharpens perception, and attracts the people who would most be in line with your life style, the style of life you live because you are honest about who you are. You will attract more people like you that you want to be around who are honest with each other.

Nobody is perfect. Its hard to always be honest. I have been caught in more lies than I care to admit. One of my biggest challenges was learning to understand that I don’t need to be afraid to tell the truth to those I care about. But, I let fear take over my mind. What will happen if they found out I burnt that shed down?? They’re going to be mad at me. Yes. But better to hear it directly from me, then hear it from your friends dad. Then, The trust is forever broken. Honesty makes you reliable and trustworthy. It allows other people to give themselves more freely to you, because you can be trusted with their vulnerable side.

When I was growing up, I lied to my parents, I lied to my friends, I lied to my girlfriends, I lied to everyone, even after the lesson my father taught me on that very day. Don’t burn down people’s shit, if you do, tell me the truth, and you will be punished, but not as bad because you told me the truth, but because you lied, I’m nailing you to the wall. I’m not proud of ever having lied, and I’m doing everything I can to make up for it with honesty. The lesson however is, If i had just told the truth, there wouldn’t be as much making up for it through life. What I did to a lot of people, left serious scars. And, I always faked a personality in certain groups, so I never had the type of friends I wanted to have, or attracted the girls I wanted to attract, until I started being honest with myself. Even now, I have room to grow.

FEAR. Everything I have ever done that ended a friendship or relationship, was all rooted in fear of the imaginary consequences I made up in my head. So TELL THE TRUTH. It’s the most respectful thing you can do for the people you love.