We are told to tell the truth and to live our lives in a truthful, upright, and honest way, but how many can actually say that without fail, they tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in all of their interactions on a given day. In point of fact, many people lie or are deceptive in what they say and do, big and small, all day, every day. They do so, not necessarily because they are bad people, though some are, and not necessarily because they don’t want to tell the whole truth, yet somehow they consistently fail to actually do exactly that.
Most people, especially in their personal uncomfortable situations, do not really want to know the truth, because the knowing of such truth would upset the equilibrium that allows them to conduct their everyday life. Others do not want to know the truth, because knowing this would necessitate fundamental character changes in their life, and they do not want to change. Still there are others that are afraid to testify to the truth, because they fear the consequences that would happen to them for having done so, personally, and therefore they shrink away.
The fundamental problem for so many in this world, is that the whole truth, may indeed bring forth clarity, but often it does not bring forth comfort. For the telling of truth is often very uncomfortable, for the person divulging such, as well as for the recipient of this truth, especially when they are unprepared or unwilling to accept it, even when they know in their heart, that what they have been told, is the unvarnished truth.
None of this should be interpreted as believing that telling the truth in circumstances in which this is consciously done to hurt another person's feelings, or to belittle them, or to harm them, is really testifying to the whole truth, for in virtually all cases it is not, for actions and thoughts that cast aside discretion and the consideration of the other, are not in conformance to the whole truth, because the person speaking this is often speaking to their own agenda, and not of a considerate desire to be of a true help to the other, but rather to put the other down, often in order to appease or to please their own selfish ego.
The reason that so many shy from recognizing the whole truth, is because, acknowledging the whole truth, often means that character flaws and other weaknesses that we have must actually be addressed, forthrightly, in order to be in conformance to what your heart knows to be right in the first place, and that therefore the making of these changes, would necessitate the changing of what you do and how you behave on a given day, which often means, very uncomfortable and inconvenient changes.
The fact that so many thereby don't make those changes, indicates, that they are more comfortable not in the truth, but in their lies that they have constructed as a substitute for that truth. This then is the reason why so often in a court of law, people lie through their teeth, and why therefore, in the court of life, people lie just the same, for few can handle or are willing to face the whole truth, for doing so, will, for all intents and purposes, expose us for what and who we really are, in which the acknowledgment of that truth really does hurt.