**lying should be avoided, but it's not always black and white.** - lying for the safety of you or others is justified and understandable. there are situations, for example, where abusers may demand to know the locations of or information about their victims. it is perfectly appropriate to lie in this situation since someone's wellbeing depends on it. - honesty genuinely is the best policy but [there are exceptions.](https://www.verywellmind.com/is-it-ever-okay-to-lie-5118228) lies themselves are a complicated thing to define, because there are lies that are lies by omission and only classify as being fake because they leave out part of the truth. - we all do it in so many different ways, [some more harmful than others.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5406989/when-better-to-lie-than-tell-truth/%3famp=true) sometimes sparing someone's feelings is more important since self proclaimed "brutally honest" people are more brutal than they are honest. maybe it's a habit we need to shake. we lie on a small scale all the time, evidenced by how we've all said we feel okay when we don't for example. this begs the question of if people would be more honest if we gave them the space to be.

**Lying, thought of as ['saying something that is not true in order to deceive'] (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lie) should be avoided as much as possible.** - In a general sense, lying is not good. In almost all situations, honesty and not intending to deceive is the better choice. - This is one of those things that sounds great as a statement but is hard to enforce in all scenarios. There's the classic example of if you're hiding a friend and a murderer comes to the door asking if they're in. In this situation, it seems obvious that the 'good' thing to do is lie and protect your friend. - But, saying that you 'should' not lie makes this statement slightly more flexible. The reality is that people do lie on a daily basis. [Researchers estimate that the average person lies at least once or twice a day] (https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hancock_the_future_of_lying). - The normalisation of lying is why we've developed to distinguish between malicious lies and ['white lies] (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/lifetime-connections/201804/is-it-ever-okay-tell-lie)', those that are intended to minimise harm or hurt. But even well-intentioned lies can escalate and cause harm. I would argue that honesty and upfront-ness is generally the best approach. - So I'd rephrase the statement and take out the 'never,' but the idea that you 'should' not lie turns honesty into something to strive towards. It's different than saying 'you will not' or 'can not'. Both of those are just untrue. Even though it's not always possible, honesty should always be something to aspire to.