Liar Liar Pant’s on Fire! (Why don’t we just go get a tattoo?)

     I have always prided myself on being honest.  I’m an honest guy.  Honest to a fault.  I don’t lie.  The truth has, always, been my strongest ally.  Except for the fact that I lie every day.  I lie to myself.  Oh, I’ll tell anybody else the cold, hard truth.  But I will go out of my way to tell myself things that are not true.  Every time I pretend I don’t feel a loss, every time I say a failure wasn’t disappointing, every time I act like your approval doesn’t really matter to me, I’m lying to myself.  My aim is not to deceive anyone, or to mislead them.  I, simply, want my reality to be more palatable.  I just want to be OK.  This is unfortunate because, with every lie I tell myself, it gets a little harder to deal with the fact that I’m not OK.  I delude myself into believing that everything is as it should be, until I reach a checkpoint in life.  Then, I see the way things really are.  I’m fat, undereducated, unprepared for life’s challenges, and I can’t find anywhere to hide from the harsh reality that I have wasted so much time.  Youth, truly, is wasted on the young.  We’re all doing the same thing.  We’re telling ourselves the same lies.  There are a few variations, but they’re the same, over all.  We’re telling ourselves that we are well equipped, and that we’ve got the world by whatever appendage we feel comfortable naming.  But the truth is that we don’t.  At best we’ve got a tiger by the tail… And the tiger’s pissed!  Very few people, from nine to ninety-nine, have anywhere near as much power or control in their lives as they keep telling themselves.  Over three billion people (roughly, half of the world’s population) are living on less than $2.50 a day.  At least 80% of humanity is living on less than $10 per day, http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats.  And for that, we’re giving up our quality of life?  I don’t know anyone, working, fulltime, in America, who has any real quality of life, to speak of.  Oh, sure, everybody has that one or two things that give them a little pleasure… A little relief from the war zone that we call the job market; but that’s not quality of life.  That’s escape.  So, the truth is that we are living to work.  Even if we’re telling ourselves that we’re working to live, the math tells the tale.    So, what’s the point?  Why should we continue to tell ourselves the lies that keep us in chains?  Should we do it for the economy?  Should we work ourselves to death, so we can buy Affliction or Ed Hardy T-shirts?  By the way, y’all look ridiculous!  I paid less money for more ink that is permanently embedded in my skin… And, my artist is better!   You can find him, and view his work at www.myspace.com/sickboy_13.  Go see him, and save yourself a truck load of money and embarrassment!  At least you won’t see some other goofball with the exact same art work, every time you step out your door.  Sorry… That rant has been a LONG time coming.  So, if we think we’re working ourselves into an early grave for some bigger purpose, we’re lying to ourselves, yet again.  Everything we do is for one of three reasons: stuff, sex, or approval.  I don’t mean to sound like a gripey, cynical jerk; but the truth is most people make their decisions based on some combination of those criteria.  There’s no judgement here… I’ve done it, too!  I swear there has to be some conspiracy to keep the majority of the population working unsatisfactory jobs, so they can blow unsatisfactory paychecks on unsatisfactory crap!  I’ve strayed WAY off the point!  Please forgive my digression, while I find my way back to the topic.  I am tired of lying to myself, and I’ve decided to stop.  This isn’t easy for me.  It may take me two or three hundred tries, so bear with me.  It’s, just, sad to wake up in the morning, wash your face, look at yourself in the mirror, and tell yourself the truth.  The truth can have a broad range.  I may start, tomorrow, with, “We’ve got a long way to go, brother,” and end up the week saying, “You are a fat loser, and I hope you trip down the stairs, when you go for your coffee!  I hope your coffee is cold and bitter, and I hope you’re out of cream!  I hope you don’t have any cigarettes, and you’re too broke to buy more!  When, you try to bum one, I hope everybody tells you that you’re a fat loser; and you should go get your own!!!!”  I’ve discovered that my mirror conversations can get really mean.  This may be a big part of why I started lying to myself, in the first place.