Senti Queen

This story is one of those which really made its mark in my young mind.  So strong was the moral lesson’s impact that eversince,  I was very afraid to tell lies lest I would also be eaten alive by the wolf.

I read the story somewhere when I was 6 years old, a time when I started to scout for books and other reading materials that do not just contain A-B-Cs, ba-be-bi-bo-bus, tiririt-tiririts, and the like.  I also got easily bored with Cinderella, SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarves, and Little Red Riding Hood because I knew that they do not happen in real life.

The Boy who Cried Wolf  is a story of the shepherd boy who deluded people with false cries of “wolf” that his real cry for help was eventually ignored.  It speaks of honesty and rectitude.  I’ve always used it as a very good analogy of how one loses his credibility by fooling people over and over again that when he’s finally telling the truth, nobody believes him anymore.

To some people, we need to lie once in a while to avoid hurting the feelings of others.  This premise was used in the movie “Liar! Liar!” starring Jim Carrey which, in a way, justified white lying.  My take on this is that perhaps it really depends on one’s motive to lie.  If it’s for a good purpose, I can still probably tolerate it.  Otherwise, one should really make sure na hindi siya mahuhuli or else, his credibility goes to the garbage.

In the end, however, no matter how one sees it, a white lie is still a lie.  And I would respect a person more if he’d just admit his mistakes and apologize than deny and deny until he dies.  A man branded as a chronic liar is no different from the boy who cried wolf.  When nobody believes him anymore, that is already tantamount to having been eaten alive  by such loss of integrity, honor, and decency.

 John Flavel wrote, “There are no little lies, because there is no little God to sin against.”