Monthly Archives: June 2013

The sooner you learn to lie, the sooner you will succeed.

By | Blog | No Comments

The sooner you learn to lie, the sooner you will succeed.

I know that sounds like a pretty harsh and/or horrible reality, but to some extent it is true. So, just hear me out. Let me preface this by saying that, I am not suggesting that you take part in the next great business scandal. I am not telling you to steal or in general be a terrible, awful, no good person. No, instead I am merely suggesting that sometimes a little lie can go a long way and if you don’t learn that at some point, you’re going to have a hard time doing… well, anything.

It starts early. It starts with grade school, with high school, with college. It starts in the classroom because when you’re in there, you’re catering to someone else. You’re catering to your teacher, to your professor. You’re catering to them because they are the ones that decide your fate. They are the ones that decide if you pass or if you fail. Yes, you can pass quizzes. You can pass tests, and you can do your homework through memorization and application, but not everything is simply right or wrong. No, most times, especially in college, it is based off of essays and interpretation. It is based off of interpretation because essays cannot be graded on a scale of right or wrong. They can’t be graded that way because everyone is different. They think different. They write different.

They are different.

So to do well, you cater to your instructor. You write that first paper as ambiguously as possible because you don’t know how they grade. You don’t know what is or is not important to them and the only way to find out is to just do it.

Write it. Hand it in and wait.

When you get it back, you find out what is important. So you focus on those things. If it’s grammar, you spend all of the time in the world making sure that your grammar is perfect. If it’s content, you spend all that time finding perfect sources. If it’s formatting, you spend it with your MLA or APA handbook. Beyond that, you focus on the elements of the paper that they find important. How do they feel about paragraph and sentence structure? Did they take points off for inaccuracies or contextual errors? You look and you continue to look because whatever it is, you find it out and you tailor the rest of your work in that class to their specifications.

Maybe it’s not a lie, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

And it’s a skill, an essential one at that. It’s essential because lying or tailoring or catering or whatever you want to call it, doesn’t stop there. No, it’s just the beginning. It’s just a crash course in “How to Bullshit”.

From there, you’ll use it to get an interview. You’ll use it to get a job, to keep a job, to get a promotion. You’ll use it every day, everywhere and if you don’t, you’ll fall behind. You’ll fall behind because everyone else is doing it.

No one takes a job in telemarketing because they love people screaming and cursing at them while they sit on their ass, wincing and waiting for a hang up. No, they take it because they need money. They take it because they have bills to pay, because it’s there and someone believed them.

Someone believed the lie.

Because when you get asked, “Why do you want to be a janitor for Shitty South Central High School?” you don’t say, “I have absolutely no desire to clean up after your whiny, shitty kids, but my rent doesn’t pay itself”

No, you say, “I think that I would be a great candidate for the position because I am an expert in the custodial arts. I have a passion for cleanliness and tidiness and it is my goal to make sure that this fine educational institution reflects that passion.”

And that’s how you pass high school. That’s how you graduate from college. That’s how you get a job and that’s how you get promoted.

You tailor.

You cater.

You bullshit.

You lie.

And the sooner you learn to lie, the sooner you will succeed.