Cheating; An Art Or Just Mischief?

Tumie Modise | Monday November 2, 2015 15:39

There’s no shortage of people who like to claim that they lead lives above reproach. You know the type: holier than thou, seemingly honest, quick to tell others when they’re straying off the path, certainly not likely to identify themselves as cheaters. But they are. We all are. Everyone is guilty of telling little white lies or devising secret ways to get ahead when the right moment arises. It doesn’t matter if you’re fibbing a little so that your wall-eyed colleague doesn’t feel bad (“No, really, no one can tell”), or if you stole a recipe to win the county bake-off just once. Even if you’re usually on the up-and-up, those little lapses land you squarely in cheater country. Despite our best efforts, we’re all cheaters in our own ways!

Still think you’re not a creepy little cheater? Are you shaking your head as you read this and saying “Oh, no, I’d never do that!” Think again. Remember that semester when you got your college roommate to write that homework assignment for you, how he even mistakenly typed her student ID on the sheet instead of yours? How about when you weren’t really cheating on your significant other because you were “on a break”? That’s right, you were cheating. And don’t even get started trying to justify that time you claimed your dog as a dependent on your tax return. That was cheating too. Getting away with it, whatever it may be is still cheating.

For most people, in our little morality books the worst form of cheating is when one cheats on their partner. Forget about lying that you that memorized the week’s memory verse in church, even when you know you don’t even have a quarterly, or when you make excuses and claim to be going on transfer when you are asked to join the church choir. Never mind withholding tithe, apparently top of the cheat list.

What is cheating though? This other famous site, ironically also famous for cheating, defines the word simply as the art of breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in any competitive situation. Such acts include, and are not only limited to acts of bribery, cronyism, sleaze and even nepotism. In all these acts, morality is often thrown right out of the window!

The only time I ever feel cheated is when I fill that nature has once again cheated me, never some other person. My policy when it comes to cheating is straight and forward, if I catch anyone cheating on me, I will cheat them not once but many times until they concede total defeat. The last thing on my mind would be to run to a store manager because the cashier ‘cheated’ me. That’s the small stuff. I owe my sanity to that policy. Browse any paper, especially a certain Friday paper. Every week, scorned partners throng customary courts where they drag their ‘cheating’ partners and sometimes, even their embarrassed accomplices.

Like I was telling someone some months back, taking this route should never be an option if you are ‘cheated on’. I have witnessed a few cases at these courts previously, and the complainants always seem to come off badly bruised from these encounters. I have seen it all, one time I even witnessed an angry jilted spouse show casing an oversized female underwear at one such court in Gaborone, sending everybody except the owner into fits of laughter. Even the Chief could not contain himself.

But here is my honest take on cheating. I really don’t think anybody cheats, I just think people cheat themselves, and then blame others. Everybody cheats. It ranges from cheating on your diet plan, to cheating your children out of their inheritance by blowing it while you are still alive. Which isn’t such a bad idea when you come to think of it? Why bother taking the loose change out of your friend’s couch when you could be making the big bucks forging checks?

The bottom line is that so-called cheaters should just be left alone to cheat. Sooner rather than later when they run out of victims, they start cheating on themselves, and then it’s a complete-circle, check mate. I wonder whether animals ever feel cheated on.