2018 – 5th Grade National 2nd Place Winner

Elaine Wang, California.

Truth or deceit? Many have asked themselves. Should I tell them the truth or lie to them, so they don’t hurt me? Despite their differences, both truth and deceit have a great impact on society. The tiniest pebble of truth can shatter even the biggest glass window of deceit, and lies can do the same to a window of truth. Both can change lives, just as stones can shatter glass. Many people have based stories on deceit, making them more extravagant than necessary.

Take North Korea as an example. Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, has fed his country lies from the very beginning; telling his country lies that they now depend upon, and refusing to allow even the tiniest bit of interaction with the outside world. The supreme leader of North Korea is afraid of telling his citizens one thing, the truth. This lack of truth causes his people to live in oppression.

As the great journalist George Orwell once said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Perhaps Orwell was saying that telling the truth is a rare act, but notice that he said revolutionary. The definition of revolution is “a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system.” Truth and realization are both necessary for people to understand what they really want in life.

As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Truth never damages a cause that is just,” informing the world how important truth can be to our society. Many changes in our world have happened because people realized that they could change their world, our world, after realizing the truth behind people’s actions. Therefore, truth has a greater impact on society than deceit.

 

 

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