Side quest 1: an asymmetric bet on the truth

An argument for a whole side quest looking at lying, dishonesty and weakness vs integrity, authenticity and strength. The idea is that lying weakens you.  Lie less, get stronger; lie a lot less, get a lot stronger. There’s a very clear, linear relationship here. And it declutters your life, and your relationships, both with other people and more importantly with yourself.

Because once you stop lying, you slowly build up your integrity, as you start behaving in ways that are actually congruent with the things you say. You begin to deliver more-or-less consistently on your promises, to yourself and to others. Then if you can link what your promises are to what you actually think and believe, suddenly you’ll find yourself living and behaving in alignment with who you are and how you want to be in the world.  It won't be lost on you that you’re spending more time walking the walk, and on a fundamental level this is a very strong position to live your life from. 

There are significant compounding benefits here, not least the fact that - in addition to other people - you’ll notice that you’re doing this, and your reputation with yourself (reductively, your “self-esteem”) improves, making it more likely you’ll continue down this path.  So a relatively automatic, surprisingly non-effortful virtuous circle presents itself.

This is a good example of an asymmetric bet, where there’s a low cost and a potentially high ROI. I’ll talk more about this in a later post.