Denying is lying
“No I don’t”, “Yes you do”, “Uh, no I don’t”, “Um, you do.”
Sound familiar? I’m talking about the struggle when people repeatedly deny something and you are certain – almost sure that both of you know – that you’re correct and the other person is wrong. Essentially you sit there thinking to yourself, “Shut up and believe me that you’re wrong.”
You may recall last June I wrote a column titled “It’s right to be wrong.” In that article I commented about how people will stand firm and argue a point that they are correct like there is no tomorrow.
We see kids do it all the time: we know they’re guilty of something but they will deny (or lie) and not budge on their story no matter what you say. For kids, we wouldn’t expect anything less. But for adults, I almost want to call them a child.
In that same article I had mentioned people disagree with medical findings that smoking cigarettes is bad for you. As expected, the e-mails poured in from people who stood behind the habit of smoking and didn’t want to hear anything that would take away their enjoyment.
Another instance comes to mind of a recent visit from my mom. She came inside from taking a puff and I pointed out, “Your jacket smells.” Because – I’ve got to be wrong of course – she replied with, “It does not.” Meanwhile her nose is so desensitized to cigarette smoke that she can’t tell the difference. The disagreement continued on for a few minutes before I thought to myself, “Wow, maybe she knows she’s wrong because she is making such an argument about it.”
My conclusion is this: the more you deny and over explain what you do, the more wrong you know you are! Denial isn’t just a river in a place that’s much warmer than Manitoba right now!
