19th April 2022, The Mindful Entrepreneur

📅 Thought for today:

‘Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.’

— Neil Gaiman

#thoughtfortoday #fiction #empathy #lies #truths #whitelies

I remember my mother telling me about “white lies”.

A “harmless” lie told to protect the feelings of someone else.

It was the acceptable face of not telling the truth.

Like when my sister made a cake and decorated it with purple and green icing.

For the record, I recall it tasting good, it just looked “dramatic”.

When someone does something for love, means well, and puts all their effort into it, how can we be anything but grateful?

When we say “it’s the thought that counts”, we may mean well but it can sound hurtful.

If we overreact and “gush”, it will sound inauthentic, making the lie obvious.

Empathy gives us the understanding and awareness to know that we could easily be hurtful in what we say.

So we have the little white lie.

Not to be mistaken for the galumphing great lies told with authoritative bravado by elected leaders.

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