The Dilemma of Self-Deception - Clearly, you can’t directly ask yourself whether you are lying because that would require you to tell the truth! We cannot be honest with others until we first are honest with ourselves. Being honest requires deliberate effort on a daily basis, as well as tolerating some painful realizations such as a Catholic who tithes ten percent might be also a proponent of basic Catholic doctrine, like that the murder of the unborn is murder.