I Lied to Everyone I Loved And It Made Me Rich

I never thought of myself as a liar. I was just a dreamer with too many secrets. But life has a way of testing you, and sometimes the only way to survive is to tell the story people want to hear, not the one that’s actually true. That’s how it all began one small lie at a time.

When I was nineteen, I lived in a one-room apartment above a grocery store. The walls were thin, the air smelled of fried oil, and the floor creaked every time I moved. My father used to call every evening and ask if I had eaten. I always told him yes, even though most nights I went to bed with only tea in my stomach. I didn’t want him to know his son couldn’t afford dinner. He already worked two jobs, and I didn’t want to add another burden to his tired shoulders. That was my first lie, the innocent kind that comes from love.

But it didn’t stop there. My mother would ask how school was going, and I’d say everything was fine. The truth was, I had stopped attending classes. I wasn’t built for lectures and textbooks. Instead, I spent my nights glued to a secondhand laptop, studying something completely different to how people spend money online. I devoured forums, blogs, and videos about e-commerce, digital marketing, and freelancing. While my classmates chased grades, I was chasing freedom. But how could I tell my family that? They’d think I was wasting my future. So I lied and said I was still studying.

The web of lies grew thicker when I started dating a girl named Aisha. She was kind, supportive, and believed in me more than I believed in myself. She thought I worked part-time at a clothing store in the mall. I made up stories about coworkers I never had and managers I never met. In reality, I was building websites for clients in different countries. I was earning money, but I was also terrified. If anyone found out I was skipping school and gambling on online work, I’d lose their respect.

The strange thing is, the more I lied, the more money I made. The hustle consumed me. I sold designs I didn’t create, outsourced jobs to cheaper freelancers while keeping the profit, and marketed myself as a company instead of a broke kid in a dim apartment. I wasn’t just bending the truth, I was reshaping it to fit the life I wanted.

Then one morning, I woke up to see more zeroes in my bank account than I had ever dreamed of. I upgraded everything. I bought new clothes, a shiny car that turned heads, and rented a condo with glass walls overlooking the city. To my parents, I told the story that I had landed a stable job with a reputable firm. To Aisha, I said I had been promoted. Everyone clapped for me, proud of the man they thought I was.

And I let them believe it. Because in their eyes, I was successful. And that word success was my keyword. It was all I ever wanted, the validation that I had escaped the poverty I was born into.

But success built on lies is a fragile thing. Every dinner with my family felt like a test. Every conversation with Aisha felt like walking a tightrope. I would smile, nod, and play my role, but inside I felt like a ghost wandering through someone else’s life.

Years later, during a family dinner, my father raised his glass and said, “We always knew you’d make it.” His eyes were proud, his voice steady, and in that moment I felt something break inside me. I smiled, I said thank you, but deep down I wondered if I had really made it or if I had just built a castle out of shadows and stories.

I lied to everyone I loved. And yes, it made me rich. But money is a strange companion. It fills your pockets and empties your soul if you’re not careful. Every time I count it, every time I buy something new, I wonder about the truth I buried. Because the truth is, I didn’t just lie to them I lied to myself.

And some days, when the city lights flicker through my condo window and I’m sitting alone with everything I thought I wanted, I can’t help but ask what did I really win, and what did I lose forever?