Of lies and power

I was weak, I was soft and I capitulated without getting what I want. What’s more, I know the guy that I was dealing with me was lying to me on probably at least two counts. I really need to become less nice to people, though admittedly I didn’t really want to lose this deal. Through this I’ll hopefully get the necessary ‘cred’ to not have to capitulate in the future.

I’m still finding it very hard to deal with all the lying around here. I’m getting a bit better at spotting it, but being so bloody honest myself (often to a fault) I often just take other people’s words at face value. I guess that’s an important lesson for me to learn.

Almost everybody seems to lie. It’s an expected characteristic, I think. I wonder what they think of me always telling the truth? Maybe they think I’m an idiot. Yet I’m still of the opinion that honesty is the best policy. If people know they can trust what I say then they will be more likely to depend on me, rather than on somebody whom they can’t trust.

Being caught in one lie is enough to destroy your credibility. After that people will always wonder if you’re telling the truth, never really forgetting that you already lied at least once. So if you’re going to lie, lie so that nobody catches you! That’s a pretty pessimistic piece of advice, isn’t it?

‘The devil will tell a thousand truths to make you believe one lie’ (not sure where that’s from)

I’ve been learning a lot of pessimistic advice recently. I’ve read ‘The 48 laws of power’ and I don’t think you can find a more pessimistic book about utilising power as that one. It’s right up there with Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ (it actually often quotes it, as a matter of fact).

Still, I advise the book. It’s got a lot of good ideas, even if you chose not to utilise all of them. An interesting thing is, I initially rejected quite a few of them, but then later on realised that the writer was probably right and I was probably wrong.

So do I actually want power? I’m not sure, but I’d sure like to have the skill set available to take it if I find out I do.