Real Talk: The Lies We Tell Ourselves

And Why We Keep Falling for Them

I once convinced myself that working a dead-end job was a “stepping stone” when, in reality, I was just scared to admit I had no clue where I was going. I told myself I was “choosing stability,” but if you had asked me what stability meant back then, I probably would have described the exact opposite of my life. The human brain is a world-class scam artist. We lie to ourselves more than we lie to anyone else. And the worst part? We believe it.

We tell ourselves these lies to outstrip our fears, to mint money in the emotional bank of self-worth. But deep down, they’re just taxias, slow, unsteady movements toward truths we don’t want to face. So, let’s take a hard look at the quiet deceits we whisper to ourselves and why they keep us stuck.

1. “I’ll Be Happy When…”

Happiness is always over there. After the promotion. After the weight loss. After you finally write that book instead of talking about writing that book. I once spent months thinking I’d be happy when I could afford a new car. When I finally got it, the euphoria lasted all of a week before I started eyeing a newer model.

I see this same lie in the horror genre all the time. Characters telling themselves, if I can just get out of this house, everything will be fine. But the house isn’t the problem; their own denial is. Once I read a review of The Amityville Horror. The reviewer explained that the Lutz family convinced themselves that moving in was a good idea, then spent the rest of the story believing that leaving would solve everything. But fear, like unhappiness, follows you. If you don’t deal with it head-on, it just changes shape.

2. “I Don’t Care What Other People Think”

Yes, you do. Everyone does. The person who screams this line the loudest is the person who cares the most. It’s why they have to keep saying it.

I remember writing a particularly scathing review and telling myself, I don’t care if people hate this. Then I sat there, refreshing the comments like a lunatic, dissecting every response, even the ones that barely made sense. We crave approval, even when we pretend not to.

The trick isn’t to stop caring altogether, it’s to be selective about whose opinions actually matter.

3. “I Don’t Have Time”

I used to think I didn’t have time to write. Then I caught myself watching YouTube videos about people who do have time to write. That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t out of time. I was out of discipline.

It reminds me of a story I wrote, where the protagonist keeps telling himself he has “no time” to confront his past. Meanwhile, his past is literally haunting him, waiting for him to acknowledge it. The things we avoid don’t disappear. They linger. They demand to be faced.

4. “Everything Happens for a Reason”

I want to believe this one, I really do. But sometimes, bad things happen for no reason at all. Like the time one of my exes cheated on me because “She wanted to know how it felt to have an affair.” Yes, those were her exact words. The funny (or unfortunate) thing about that relationship was that, from the start, I told her I would not tolerate infidelity. In the words of a very good friend of mine, “You basically gave her the knife, and she stabbed you with it.”

So, no. Fuck that. Not everything happens for a reason. That’s why I loved writing S2:E17, The End of Camino Real. That chapter of my life was about confronting reality’s messiness and unpredictability and learning to accept that sometimes things just are.

5. “I’m Just Being Honest”

No, you’re being an asshole.

Honesty is valuable, but brutal honesty is often just an excuse to be cruel. I had a friend who prided himself on his “no-filter” attitude. He once told someone at a party, “You look exhausted,” as if that was some noble act of truth-telling.

This reminds me of my Blindness review. Saramago’s style was relentless, raw, and honest to the point of exhaustion. And I didn’t love it. Because honesty, when weaponized, becomes oppressive. Truth without compassion is just cruelty with a better PR team.

6. “I Have No Regrets”

Really? None? Not even that time you sent a drunk text so cringeworthy it still wakes you up at night? Regret is human. It means you’ve lived, made choices, and learned from them. The real problem isn’t regret, it’s letting it paralyze you.

When I wrote about Carrie, I realized that the entire novel is built on regret: the regret of her mother, the regret of the students, the regret of Carrie herself. And what happens when regret festers? It burns everything down. Literally.

7. “I Can Change Them”

If you’ve ever dated someone thinking you could “fix” them, congratulations, you’ve been scammed by your own optimism. I once had a friend who swore her boyfriend would “mature” out of his selfishness. Seven years later, he was still treating her like an afterthought. People don’t change because we want them to. They change because they want to.

This is why Obsessed works so well. The protagonist believes he can mold reality around his desires and bend another person’s will to fit his own needs. But people are not projects. And when we try to “fix” them, we usually end up breaking ourselves.

8. “If I Ignore It, It Will Go Away”

Ah, the classic avoidance strategy. Problems don’t disappear just because we refuse to look at them. They fester. They multiply. They wait for the worst possible moment to explode. I once ignored a suspicious noise in my car for months, convincing myself it was “nothing.” One day, that “nothing” turned into my engine dying on a freeway overpass.

The monster under the bed doesn’t just leave because you stop looking.

9. “I’m Fine”

This is the most dangerous lie of all. “I’m fine” is what we say when we don’t want to deal with the truth. I said “I’m fine” when I was miserable in a job that drained me. I said “I’m fine” when I was drowning in stress and pretending I had everything under control.

This is why memoir writing is so important to me. The power of storytelling isn’t in creating a polished, perfect image. It’s in cracking it open and letting the raw truth spill out.

The Truth About Our Lies

We tell ourselves these lies to feel safe, to avoid discomfort, to keep moving forward without questioning the road we’re on. But if we’re not careful, they become a prison. The real challenge is having the courage to confront the truths they’re hiding.

Because the only way to stop lying to ourselves is to start listening to ourselves instead.

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