So people cheat you?
Tumie Modise | Monday August 28, 2017 16:53
There’s no shortage of people who like to claim that they lead lives above reproach. You know the type: the holier-than-thou, Jesus’ assistants, the seemingly honest. They are usually quick to tell others when they’re straying off the path, but are 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! Nothing to be proud of.
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 she 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 those manufactured sick notes. Even doctors lie. I wonder what else they lie about if they can lie to our employers and even charge us for it with straight faces! That is 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 all that lying we do at our homes, we even lie in church! Like one time I came with this excuse in church when I was asked to join the church choir that I was going for further studies abroad. I couldn’t just look them in the face and say no. I later prayed about it when I got home.
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.
It’s a very effective way of dealing with love cheaters. 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 brandishing female underwear at one such court in Gaborone, sending everybody except the owner into fits of laughter. Needless to say, the owner was not amused at all. 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 for it. It ranges from cheating on your diet plan, to cheating your children out of their inheritance by blowing it while you are still alive. 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.