Principles -“Emotional deceit”- 28/5/2016

   I formerly discussed the topic of giving misleading ideas in the form of distorted, incomplete or inaccurate information to others with the object of achieving personal interest, enticing someone to commit mistakes or giving false witness and more of that sort of deceitful ideas.
   There is also the emotional deceit: making someone believes that he is loved or cared about in order to get financial or moral benefits. It causes deep scars of pain, self-distrust and that of others. It may be difficult to heal these scars through many years.
   Hypocrisy is a sort of emotional deceit. It can be shown in the hypocrite words and actions of the employees toward their employers at associations and services they are part of. Its goal is to get an interest like being treated in a special way or getting definite authorities, etc. Thus, a person must not involve his feelings in situations before he thinks thoroughly ,waits patiently to discover people’s realities and determines if someone is really honest or rather deceitful.
   Deceit can be in relationships. A man may tell a woman about how he loves her to earn her love and trust, yet time reveals his deceit and dishonesty. This sort of deceit destroys the deceived person’s life, especially when he trusts others once they offer him honeyed words. H.H Late Pope Shenouda said about emotional deceit that the most dangerous sort of fake love is maybe embodied at a person who is an enemy yet his deceit makes him look as a friend. The poet described the deceitful saying that
How deceitful someone is he!
Who says how poisonous a snake is
Yet a snake he does resemble and be !
In order not to be deceived, you have to realize that not all acts or words of love you see and hear are real and aim at your good, but you have to wait and see till you realize through passing years and practical situations the real hidden emotions of others. Here, dear friend, some suggestions:

First: Heart and mind:

   Judging depending on how you feel toward people make you vulnerable to fall for cunning traps. So, you must judge using your mind and your heart. Hence, you will experience many situations and be able to judge them rationally.

Second: Words and situations:

   Being attentive to how people act especially in hard times will be your guide to their real personalities whether sincere or not, while words can’t express realities of people. They say that situations are the autumn of relationships as fake persons fall like autumn leaves. Comparing man’s words to his acts is the best way to discover many styles and sorts of hypocrisy, cunning and fakeness.

Third: Building trust:

   Unconfident person easily falls for honeyed words. So, if someone loves words of praise, he has to stop a little while and thinks honestly and asks other honest people about reasons of that love. Once he discovers that love is due to lack of self-confidence, he has to build it the right way that can truly help him, not by deceit that will cause him many scars one day.

Anba Ermia, 
General Bishop & President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center