What’s the most beautiful lie you’ve been told?

We’ve all been told a lie:

Pronouncing every alphabet and counting every number on the numbers letters playmat is going to win praise from my parents. Scoring full-As is going to guarantee me a bright future. An imaginary girlfriend is going to help me go through all high school problems

Sometimes we lie to ourselves.

Life is getting better. Next semester I’m going to study harder. I’ll watch that particular Netflix show soon.

What is life without lies?

People don’t stick to the truth, people don’t even know what the truth is. What’s the origin of human beings, what is the real meaning of time, do unicorns exist? Sure you can google or ask your grandparents about those truths, but the truth is nobody knows 100% about anything. A hand sanitizer is going to kill 99.99% of germs, but what about the remaining 0.01%? Is the manufacturer of the hand sanitizer lying about the functionality of their product? If they are, why do they do that?

The ultimate goal of people telling a lie (good or bad ones) is to live with their lives. Imagine every single human being on this earth is telling the truths, how many more keyboard warriors will be born? How will the suicide rates increase due to criticism? How cosmetic companies are going to survive? Admit it, we feel good when we’ve been lied to and we cultivate this nature of human being by telling lies to others as we assume they will feel good too.

The harsh truth of lying is we need to lie and to be lied to. It’s the nature of human beings. If lying about one’s appearance can save one’s life and lying about a product can save a dying business, why not lie? As long as we maintain a good position and a good starting point, we are good to go to lie.

Next time you’ve been told a lie, move on and be ready for more lies.

Written by Shawn Wong

Photos by Shawn Wong

This is a student submission, if you have a story or works to share with everyone, feel free to send in to @musa.editor@monash.edu!