Exaggeration and understatement can both be the forms of false speech. We can exaggerate in order to make ourselves be more interesting and to make our fairly ordinary lives seem very exciting. We exaggerate, because we want to be loved, but don’t think of ourselves as ourselves as interesting and attractive enough to be loved. Not only the exaggeration is unskillful, but the lack of self-esteem is to. Understatement can have the same root cause. The English people are especially prone to this. It can be a sort of exaggerated politeness and niceness leading to falseness. So, you will hear the people say things link, “no, no, I wans’t upset” when clearly they were and still are, or “oh no, it’s of no inconvenience” when again it very clearly is and so on. In wanting to be pleased, to be nice, to be polite, the people can sometimes end up being quite false. You see this sometimes in the people’s faces; endlessly smiling in a sort of desperation to be like and from fear if being disapproved. So, there is false speech of commission such as lies, exaggeration and understatement. There is also a false speech of omission. This is when what we say is strictly true but because of what we leave out, it is not the whole truth. In fact, it may even convey a completely wrong impression. That can be the intention. For instance. If we don’t like someone, we may describe him or her in such a one-sided way as to give the impression that they are monstrous, because we are blind to their good qualities or we don’t want to believe that they any redeeming features. On describing particular events, we may eat to show ourselves in a good light. So, we leave out what is unfavorable or embarrassing to us. The truth suffers, the truth suffers, the communication suffers and inevitably that means that we suffer and others suffer.
Behind false speech lies egotism in one form or another. Whether we simply want to get our own way want to control people and events or we are frightened or we are out for revenge, it all comes back to me, me, me - the ‘I’ at the center of the Universe. So one important step on the way to more truthfulness is an honest self-appraisal, to see how much we are motivated by fears, or by a desire to control people and events which may be just another spicy off ear or how much we are motivated by revenge or how much it is just a question of childishly wanting to get our own ways. So, truthfulness or honesty can begin with ourselves can be built up from there. If we are honesty with ourselves, then we will more be living in an honest world, a world or truthfulness. Moreover, our honesty with ourselves is not just confined to our faults or weaknesses or murky motivations. An honest self-appraisal also takes into account quite fully our better qualities and our aspirations and efforts to grow. One sided views, whether of other people or of oneself, are rarely the honest appraisals. So, by being honest, we create a world of honesty and also by being untruthful, we create a world of dishonesty which is an unpleasant and tiring place to live.