“Please, please don’t talk to me today.  Not today.  Can’t it wait?” he thought to himself.  The big boss was scheduled to arrive any minute.  The day was a slow one, and that meant plenty of random tasks could be accomplished.  The problem was he was looking for new work.  No, that’s not quite it.  The problem was he hated lying.  He had tried it a couple times in his life.  It never felt good.  And he could tell that today was going to be no different.  He wanted to know what kind of situation work is that it forced him to lie.

The big boss being there is what bothered him so.  In order to keep his job he’d answer the man’s insincere question with, “Good.  Things are good.  How about you?”  Inside, though, he’d be thinking, “Not great.  In fact, I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would do this work except to get paid.  And that’s just not how I’m going to live.”

The moment came and went without much excitement.  He had done it.  He had looked a man directly in the eye and lied.

Leaving work as soon as they let him, he went home and laid down.  Waking up three hours later, his stomach was still in knots.  Like when in the aircraft his hands began maneuvering the machine away from danger before his brain concluded there was danger ahead, he knew that he had to trust his body’s language now.  It was saving itself.