A week ago, I wrote about how the truth will always win out. The idea deserved more fleshing out.

In the short term, it is often easier to fib. To smudge the edges on that thing that just happened, to call into question some of the myriad circumstances involved, to question why this thing is being brought up at all.

But this is disingenuous, and it is cowardly. It bring less clarity to a situation, not more. And a couple other things:

1. It undermines your own integrity. By integrity here I mean your own grip on truth, your own ability to perceive things honestly as they actually happen.

• After you’ve made the decision to adopt one of the strategies above, and you've repeated it a few times, your brain will automatically process things this way. You've trained it. Once that happens, you've lost your anchor into a reality you can count on.

• Soon, every problem, no matter how insignificant, turns into a foggy, abstract threat. Now that you've given away your ability to perceive what's really happening, you often can't and won't truly believe you're able to resolve it. So you’ll look for ways out.

• Then, every failure becomes yet another recitation of “well, they didn’t do X," "but there were so many variables," and "we should have tried that other way, and there was nothing we could do but now we know.”

2. It’s not sustainable. After you’ve done this a few times, the people who are committed to truth will tune you out, knowing you're an unreliable source of information. Based on the prevailing power of truth, it is often those most committed to it who are creating real, influential solutions in the world.

• These people will dread working with you. They’re not bad people and they won’t necessarily even dislike you as a person; they’ll just know that dealing with you doesn’t tend to achieve good things for people, or novel solutions. Instead, dealing with you often entails being forced to navigate a source of reflexive, defensive chaos while trying to get something done.

• You won't end up making many friends, and the ones you do make will be just as unreliable as you are. (Being surrounded by these people who are like you might ironically vindicate your recently rationalized belief that this is simply the way life is, and anyone who says otherwise is the one that's the liar. Tragicomedy comes in many forms.)

I'm thankful I've had role models in my life who are effective, successful, and influential - and are staunchly committed to truth. I'm also thankful I've had models of people who are allergic to truth, yet are also effective, successful, and influential. Witnessing how each has moved through life has helped me clarify my own path.