We ALL Cheat

by Don Harkey

We ALL cheat!

This is not an excuse or even an endorsement, but it might be the first step to recovery. Have you even been able to admit this to yourself?

I believe that everyone has cheated at some point. I can remember a take home test that a teacher gave. The test was VERY difficult and would take a single person a VERY long time to work on. The teacher clearly knew that students would work on it together and therefore compensated by making the test more difficult. The effect is that it made it difficult NOT to cheat on the test... and cheat we did. Cheat I did.

That's hard to say, isn't it? "I cheated". We tend to follow up that rare statement with the word "but" pointing to a justification that might be very legitimate. Often times we cheat because it is the easier of 2 paths. Either the way we are supposed to do it is so hard that we find another way, or the shortcut is very short. We have ALL been through this.

The point I want to make is that it is still wrong. I am not passing judgment on those who take the short cut, but I am encouraging you to allow yourself to realize what you have done. I would also point out the "short-cut" is easier to take every time you choose to take it.

I don't always make the right decisions, but I try to be aware of those moments and ask myself "what type of person do I want to be?". If I am driving home from the store and realize that they forgot to ring up the bottle of soda, I try to catch myself in the moment. It is very easy to bypass it quickly saying, "well, they screwed up". After all, the football game is already in the 3rd quarter and if I turn around, I will likely miss the whole game. The store was crazy busy and the employees won't care if you pay for that stupid soda. They probably would give it to you anyway.

When I find myself in the midst of that type of logic, I try to ask myself the question, "what type of person do I want to be?". Do I want to know myself as the type of person who turns around, returns to the store, waits in line, deals with an unhappy employee who clearly thinks I should have just taken the soda, misses the game, and gets home late for dinner all because the checkout person made a mistake?

When I am truly self-aware in those moments, the answer is "yes". Remember to take advantage of the times in your life that make you extraordinary.