IN THE RING OF LIFE: WHAT ABOUT CHEATING?

Cheating can happen everywhere and anywhere. However, I want to charge you to imagine a world where cheating takes place nowhere. Would you consider that a fantasy or an impossibility? Well, I am encouraged to say that it is highly achievable and possible because the ability to maintain an honest life is a choice one makes consciously. It is a deliberate attempt to avoid situations, people, activities or events that may cause you to act dishonestly.

Dishonesty does not happen instantaneously. It is an attitude that develops over a period of time following certain choices and decisions made to evade honest approaches to dealing with issues. Some of the conditions that lead to cheating include:

1. telling little lies to cover up issues the first instance they occur which leads to creating more lies for sustenance;

2. the fear of the high cost of hurting the individual(s) with the truth and related consequences;

3. inability to have open conversations about what your actual needs and expectations are of the other person;

4. seeking instant self-gratification at the expense of others involved in the situation;

5. lack of patience to allow certain events to follow their natural cause;

6. taking delight in pretending to be who you are not;

7. justifying mistakes and making excuses rather than apologising to make things right;

8. lack of value for the worth of the relationship over the situation in which one is cheating;

9. the thought that the other party may never find out about the dishonest act and therefore there's no need to be honest; and

10. cheating as a means to find the easy way out of situations.

The above list is inexhaustible. However, I hope it gives you some appreciation of the factors which may cause you to cheat in a relationship, a school examination, at the workplace, in the church environment and other social settings.

Whereas you may get away with cheating on more than one occasion, it is imperative to know that eventually the truth finds a way to reveal itself. Truth remains one, same and unchanged notwithstanding the time, place, or circumstance under which the incident takes place. A lie, however, is an endless web of deceit, discomfort and lack of peace which sets you on edge for a long time.

The issue of cheating only erupts from relationships where built trust is broken. To cheat, therefore, is to make someone believe something which is not true in order to gain some benefits for yourself. This is unfortunate and unfair and ought to be avoided as much as possible.

This is not to say that upholding the virtue of honesty thereby avoiding the temptation to cheat is an easy one. Quite the contrary; it entails a consistent and conscious effort to be open and transparent in all your engagements with the significant people you owe such allegiance to. It involves a deliberate effort to 'come clean' at all times irrespective of the consequences of your disclosure.

To avoid being a cheat means that although the other party or parties may not be present or have any clue about your activities, you endeavour to remain sincere. As humans who are fallible, you may fall short of this expectation sometimes but there is always the opportunity to immediately rectify the wrong act by making a disclosure and seeking forgiveness where necessary. This, however, does not mean that you should intentionally and deliberately cheat on someone while expecting that the other person will forgive you. If he or she does, fair enough but if that is not the case, pick up the pieces and live a better life in future.

There is no shame in admitting to mistakes and retracing your steps to re-earn the trust once reposed in you by those you hold dear and vice versa. When no one is watching, can you be trusted not to cheat?