Every lie comes with a part-time job: keeping it alive.

The cost of a lie is not the telling, it is the shifts afterward. You have to remember the details, steer conversations, keep certain people apart, and stay alert for the one question that unravels it. None of that work produces anything. It is a job with hours and no pay, and you hired yourself for it in a second.

Count the ones you are currently maintaining. Pick the cheapest to close, say the true version to whoever is holding the false one, and notice the hour you get back. You do not have to clear the whole list this week.