Silly Old Bear

2. PLAY FAIR

How many times have you been to a football game and someone on the other team cheated, but the referee didn’t see it?

“Come on, Ref! Didn’t you see that? That guy cheated! My grandma could have seen that, and she’s blind!”

We don’t like it when other people cheat.

But what is it that makes cheating wrong? Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia) defines cheating like this:

“Cheating is defined as an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of rules.”

Cheating is wrong because it isn’t fair. If someone else wins because they cheated, it isn’t fair. “I should have won that game. The only reason you won is because you cheated. That’s not fair!” If someone else gets a better grade on a test because they cheated, it isn’t fair. “I studied hard for that test. You didn’t study at all. You just came in here and cheated, and you got a better grade than I did. That’s not fair!”

Wikipedia said that cheating creates “an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others”. Cheating is wrong because it hurts other people. There are people who will cheat at anything, any time, and never think twice about it. Those kind of people typically don’t care a whole awful lot about other people. They only care about themselves.

To be the best person you can be, you have to care about other people. To be the best person you can be, you have to play by the rules.

There’s an old saying that says, “Cheaters never win”. That’s not always true in the short term. Sometimes a team will win a game because they cheated. Sometimes a student will pass a test because he cheated. It certainly appears that, in those situations, cheating paid off. It looks like the cheaters won. But be assured that, in the long run, in the grand scheme of things, cheaters are always losers. Why?

Life is full of rules. Everywhere you go, there are rules. There will always be rules you will have to follow. When you go to school, there are rules. When you get a job, there are rules you have to follow. In sports, there are rules you have to follow. At church, there are rules you have to follow. In society, there are rules you have to follow. When you get in a car and drive, there are rules you have to follow. Everywhere you go, there are rules. You cannot escape from rules.

One of the most important lessons that anyone can learn in life — and the sooner a person learns this, the better — is: Choices have consequences. When you choose to break the rules, you have chosen to face the consequences of breaking the rules. When you develop a habit of cheating, you might get away with it at first. But at some point, it is going to catch up with you. At some point, you are going to get caught. And the more you cheat, the harder you will fall when you do get caught. In the long-run, cheaters always lose.

If you will develop the habit of playing by the rules, of playing fair, then life will be much better, and you will be a winner.

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This entry was posted by Paul O'Rear on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 7:10 AM. If you would like to keep track of Comments on this post left by other Silly Old Bear visitors, you can do so through the RSS 2.0 feed. You are invited to leave a Comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.