You might be lying more than is healthy for you.

Most people think lying is harmless, just social grease or a shortcut through conflict.

I used to think that too.

But the real damage caused by lying isn’t moral. It’s structural. It’s what it does to your internal model of reality.

To be a convincing liar you have to believe your own stories. And the moment you start believing them, you compromise the part of your mind that knows what’s real. That internal compass, the one that helps you navigate the world and navigate yourself, begins to distort. Hannah Arendt warned that when lies replace truth, our ability to orient ourselves collapses. That’s the real danger.

Lying feels like control, but over time it becomes the opposite. You create a false world, and then that false world starts controlling you.

If you’ve been lying long enough, you’ve already split yourself in two: the part of you that knows the truth and the part of you performing the lie. Carl Jung would say the performer becomes a shadow self you start living inside. And if you inhabit that character long enough, you confuse their desires for your own. Eventually the performance becomes the identity, and your entire life bends around maintaining it.

The prescription is simple, but brutal. Tell the truth again.

But be warned. Truth is expensive. David Foster Wallace said the truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you.

Telling the truth means killing the false self, and that death is painful because you’ve been identifying with that character for years. You’ve invested in them. You’ve protected them. You’ve let them run your life.

Worse, many of your relationships have bonded not with you, but with the liar, with the persona. And when you kill that persona, people will grieve it. Some will resent you. Some will leave. Some will tell you you’re not yourself anymore without realizing they never actually knew you in the first place.

People love the lie. It’s easier to love. Cleaner. More convenient.

When you start telling the truth, don’t expect applause. Expect resistance. Expect disappointment. Expect people to prefer the mask you wore over the face you’re finally revealing.

But if you stay the course, something else happens.

The world becomes solid again.

Your mind aligns with reality.

Your inner compass recalibrates.

And you stop living as a character in a story you never meant to write.

You come back to yourself.