What I Learned From An Authentic Liar
A $50 lesson in integrity.
How to lose fifty bucks
“Hey, any chance you could lend me $2.25?”
I should have politely declined and kept going, but I stopped and engaged. Over the next couple of minutes, Jake introduced himself and told me a story that sounded somewhat plausible.
He needed money for a train ticket, which is why it was the specific amount he asked for. His car had stalled and he needed to get home so he could get to his ATM card. He had some shirts in the car from his soccer club. He would give them to me as security so I would know he would pay me back. He gave me his phone number.
To make a long story short, I ended up fronting Jake fifty bucks, because I trusted him. It was not the best decision I made that day. I was in my early twenties so I probably should have known better. But I tried to suss out if he was speaking the truth and I thought I could tell that he was.
Jake had promised me he would come by my work the next day to pay me back at 11:00 AM. As you would probably expect by now, 11:00 AM came and went without a sign of Jake. So I called the number he had given me. It was not a fake number; it was his mother’s. She assured me he’d played this game before and she herself still had some debt to collect from him as well. It was clear my fifty bucks were gone.
Money well spent?
You may find this hard to believe, but today, I consider it money well spent.
It was tuition. We all need to learn the difference between what’s fake and what’s authentic, and Jake introduced me to a whole new level of fakery. He was authentic, he gave me a real phone number that was associated with him, I suspect he really did have a car with a soccer team’s shirts. He told me a number of things that were true, and he artfully wove in the lie that he would pay me back. He may have even believed it himself.
That’s what good con artists do. They try to take advantage of the fact that we tend to confuse authenticity with integrity.
Lying with authenticity
Authenticity means being real, it’s a state of congruence between our words and our emotions. Saying what you mean and not hiding your true intention. If you do try to hide something, it’s what lie detectors pick up on, the little often imperceptible “tells” that go on at a level the human eye cannot perceive. But lie detectors aren’t perfect. People have successfully passed a lie detector test while lying. Like Jake, some people have learned to lie authentically.
It is after all what any good actor does. I’m often amazed at the difference between A-movies and B-movies. A-movies are believable, they make you care about the people in them. B-movies are not the same, although it’s hard to put your finger on the difference.
But you know it when you see it. They’re not as believable, they just don’t feel authentic, and as a result your feelings aren’t engaged. That’s why some actors make millions while others wait tables to make ends meet. Good actors have the ability to create an illusion. They make you believe a lie.
Actors, magicians, politicians and con artists all have something in common: they aim to create an illusion that is so convincing that we, the audience, fall for it.
Authenticity isn’t enough
One part of the problem was that I confused authenticity with integrity. The same issue comes up with our elected leaders. We want them to have integrity. But do they? Authenticity is not the way to tell.
Hitler was authentic, at least he was at times. He certainly lied when it seemed advantageous for him to do so. But he also spoke the truth about what he believed. Again, let’s not confuse authenticity — being real — with being a person of integrity. As early as 1919 Hitler said about the Jews that they were “a race-tuberculosis of the peoples,” and identified the ultimate goal as “the removal of the Jews altogether.”
It’s hard to wrap your head around that level of callousness and evil, especially since he followed through on that statement by killing millions of Jews by the time World War II came to an end.
Contrast that with the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul in Lithuania when Jews were trying to flee Europe at the start of World War II.
He contacted his superiors in Japan three times asking them for guidance as he was inundated with requests for travel visas. Each time he received strict orders only to issue visas to people who already had a visa for another destination outside of Japan.
He weighed his orders against a higher law. Then he went on and issued travel visas to the thousands of Jews who otherwise would have been stuck and ultimately caught by the German invasion of Lithuania. By some estimates, he saved as many as 10,000 lives by issuing these visas over the course of a few months in direct disobedience of his superiors.
That is what integrity looks like.
From authenticity to integrity
Integrity goes beyond the single dimension of authenticity because it incorporates the three essential qualities of love, truth and freedom.
It is by integrating these three qualities into your character in a balanced way, that you achieve integrity.
1. Love. Love recognizes the autonomy of each individual. It doesn’t impose its will on others but acts with compassion and kindness when action is called for.
2. Truth. A dedication to the truth that supersedes a personal agenda. It goes beyond an occasional flirtation with the truth. It’s a consistent dedication to the principle through honesty, curiosity, reason and experience.
3. Freedom. The principle recognizes the power and right of each individual to chart their own course. The power to choose, and with that power comes great responsibility. Love and truth are the guiding principles that inform the responsible use of our freedom.
These qualities strengthen and balance each other.
A single quality without the others to balance them can easily turn a positive into a negative.
As a 12-year-old I was once shamed for wearing the wrong kind of jeans because they were not fashionable. It was the truth, but it was truth without love. Perhaps not scarred for life, but it hurt enough that I still remember this decades later!
A parent who tries to protect their child from every possible bad encounter may be expressing love, but a lack of freedom will stifle the child’s growth and eventually lead to rebellion.
There’s a balance there when all three qualities are present. That’s why integrity is a balanced approach to life. A way to respect both ourselves and those around us. To give freedom with responsibility. To understand that truth and freedom need to be balanced by love.
The game of life
So why was my experience with Jake so valuable? Why was it worth the fifty dollars?
It got me to realize that this is part of the game of life. His job was to create the illusion of integrity, of having a code of ethics. My job was to see through his act or fall for it. I fell for it.
It’s nothing personal. It’s just part of the training. Life is a school where there’s lots to learn. And the more I learn, the more I see the value of developing these qualities of love, truth and freedom. The lesson here was not to create a blanket rule and start distrusting every person, never giving money to a stranger ever again. That would mean closing my heart.
The lesson — as I see it — is for me to keep my heart open, stay open to the possibility of helping others, while simultaneously growing my awareness of truth. Can this person be trusted or not? Living life with integrity doesn’t mean we have to be an easy mark for every con artist who crosses our path.
The game of life gives us many opportunities to grow — if we recognize them.
Fifty bucks for a lesson in integrity? I say: totally worth it!
