The Effects of Lying for Life and Personality - A Cause and Effect Essay

Cause and Effect Essay

The Effects of Lying for Life and Personality

By : Desak Anugrah Dwi Kusuma

Picture 1.0 Long-nosed pinocchio is usually used as an illustration of someone who likes to lie.
(https://medium.com/hawthorne-crow/15-questions-about-pinocchio-9dc459e7ba6e)

            Telling lie or what would people say dishonest is an act which has so many motives behind. It derives from people needs to get some profit in the tight situation. People maybe telling lies to win the admiration of others, to avoid embarrassment, to exercise power over others by controlling the information the target has, to obtain a reward not otherwise readily obtained, and so on. Therefore, we cannot say that telling lie is negative at all, because there is might be a good reason, like to maintain privacy without notifying others of that intention, defend the truth or protecting someone else from danger. But, however, lying can be a double-edged knife which sharpness can affect life and personality so badly.    

Although it is often understimated, people’s life can be seriously in danger by several effects of lying. First, lying can destroy relationship. In life, human can not live alone, so relationship which is built on trust is very important. It is very hard to get trust. By just one act of lying, trust can be dissapear and it can be very difficult to rebuild. Until, the lack of trust ruins someone life in society, then it affects to career, economy, family image, and many others life aspects. Second, lying can change lifestyle. To keep a little white lies alone is not easy, it creates anxiety that brings eat and sleep issues. Third,  lying can make someone addicted. It is like snowball, little by little, the bigger it can be until it makes someone good becomes villain and trapped at jail in the end.

Picture 1.1 The illustration of someone who is trying to not get caught lying.
(http://ucsdguardian.org/2019/06/05/practical-tips-coping-anxiety/)

            Besides giving bad effects to life, lying also gives some for personality. First, lying can lead someone losing their identity. If someone is telling lies to cover the true identity for over and over, the untruth facts will be truly believed because of illusory truth effect. Then,  someone will be too comfortable to be a person who is not himself. For example, poor people claim they are rich, telling lies if they have everything but nothing for real until something bad happened. Second, lying can change kind personality into a bad one. With lies that are increasingly piling up, a person might lose his mind because being stressed to think the ways to cover up those lies. For example, being afraid to meet friends, looks moody, panic, and likes to yell even to parents in order to defend the lies. Third, lying can decrease self-esteem. Because, when someone tells lie too often, he will start to think less of himself.

Picture 1.3 Losing self-esteem.
(https://www.bustle.com/p/how-does-lying-affect-your-mental-health-10-surprising-effects-of-telling-white-lies-8716219)

            Telling a tiny lie in order to keep someone in a good mood, like giving praise to friend even though his food is not delicious enough, is perfectly fine. But, if a person is covering up something essential to himself, or can not address the truth for beneficial things that not supposed to obtain, it can have negative effects, especially for life and personality. Therefore, in essence, telling lies is indeed an act that human must get rid of in order to avoid bad things happen in the present life or in the future.

Postscript : This essay was made by using outline technique. 
I will show you the outline below.