Turning to a friend the other day, I grinned and declared, "I don't cheat. EVER." It was... sort of true, at least in this instance. Having been accused of cheating at a dart game, I could make the statement without too much fear of being struck by a stray bolt of lightning.

It's so much simpler to point out 'truth' and 'lie' or 'fair' and 'unfair' in a game like darts, one with straightforward rules and regulations. You break one of those rules and you are, by definition, cheating. In the more ambiguous environments that life affords, however, how do we distinguish between truth, untruth, and complete lie?

I can't pinpoint the exact moment that I told my first lie, but I'm sure that it was somewhere around the time I began talking. From a very young age, we learn to equivocate- telling white lies in order to appease our parents or our friends. We are told to 'always tell the truth, no matter what,' but then are provided with countless examples of adults we look up to making excuses or flat-out lying.

One famous example of this- which happened when I was around the age of thirteen- is the Clinton impeachment trial, when Bill Clinton, faced with the accusation of lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, said that whether he lied or not depended on the definition of the word 'is.' When the president of the United States of America is waffling about his extramarital affairs to a grand jury, how can we be expected to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (so help us God)?

Personally, I have been known to tell my share of untruths. Maybe it's because I have chosen- most of my life- to navigate the oftentimes treacherous waters of vaguely defined relationships, indefinite rules, and unclear explanations. Avoiding questions like 'Are you my boyfriend?' and 'Am I allowed to do this?' permits you to avoid blame for doing something that can only be defined as wrong when you define the other things first. The black and white of 'truth' and 'lie' are hard to point out, when you live in a world of grey.

Still, though, hearing the phrase, "I never cheat. EVER." coming out of my own mouth took me aback. What is cheating, really? And what is true? How do we define these things for ourselves, and how do we use them to define the world we live in?

In a world of moral greys, I've decided to clarify my own understanding of these terms- otherwise I may find myself, years down the road, asking a grand jury to define the word 'is.'