There are a goals, objectives, destinations or ends we want to achieve, but there are challenges on our way and path to get there. Life is full of opportunities and challenges. It takes work to reach our destination. Are you ready to do the honest work to reach and grab what you want to achieve? Or are you looking to cheat your way to get what you want?

We often struggle to get where we want to go. But that is part of what makes the final achievement that much more worth it, that much more of an accomplishment. If everything was handed to us, there would be little sense of accomplishment. The easy path is often less fulfilling. Being handed things and not working for it often takes away the deeper meaning and purpose behind attaining it.

<center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/DH4DKbw.jpg" /><br/><em><sub><a href="https://agcks.org/build-up-ks/">Source</a></sub></em></center>

In school, we may have been told that "If you cheat, you’ll only be cheating yourself." But those who wanted to cheat, did it anyways. And cheating doesn't diminish in the adult world, it amplifies because there isn't a teacher watching over the class anymore.

Honest is a lot virtue in many places. Romantic partners cheat, business partners cheat, athletes cheat, politician cheat and corporations cheat. People want to get ahead or get what they want, regardless of the honesty lost. Dishonesty takes over in our behavior when we will do whatever we can do to get what we want. When there is a conflict of interest between doing things honestly and getting what we want, we justify and rationalize what we do in order to get what we wanted.

If we want to make money, then we often do whatever we can to get ahead and make money, so long as we don't get punished for doing it. If there are no formalized rules against it, it's justified, even if it's wrong to do. Many people don't want to (or can't) look at the issue objectively detached from their personal self-centered and self-interested motivations to see it from the outside and determine if it's really right to do. If they can cheat the system to get ahead, they will.

<div class="pull-right"><center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/q5mpQJ8.jpg" /><br/><em><sub><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_poker">Source</a></sub></em></center></div>

Money is a top motivator in business, and it's no surprise that in a study on college students and cheating, business school comes out on top with the most cheaters. People want to get what they want without having to do the honest work to get it. And this applies in other areas. If there is no downside to cheating, many people do it.

Some people buy things they want, but can't afford, and return it before the return policy is up. Walmart has a 90 day return policy, so some people buy TVs and use them until before the return date is up.

People want to have physical or emotional intimacy, but may cheat on their partner rather than work at the existing commitment they are in or leave to find someone else after. If they know they won't get caught, 74% of men and 68% of women say they would cheat on their partner.

Is cheating the best way forward? Not really. You might get the thing you crave, money, sex, an object, but it a negatively affect your well-being. That is, if you still care about being an honest person and doing what's right.

<div class="pull-left"><center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jh53bQ3.jpg" /><br/><em><sub><a href="https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-hard-work-easy-money-sign-dual-green-post-text-uppercase-white-letters-arrows-pointing-opposite-directions-image48978362">Source</a></sub></em></center></div>


When you don't work for what you got, when you don't earn it honestly, when you cheat your way, you end up cheating yourself. You didn't get where you are on your own merits, from doing the work yourself, you conned your way there and conned yourself. You think you got ahead, but did you really?

Earning our way to get what we want is good for our sense of self and well-being. We feel proud. We feel like we actually accomplished something ourselves. You aren't really getting ahead as an authentic, real, true self/being when you cheat your way and don't work or earn what you get. The meaningfulness and purposefulness of the journey/means is lost in order to attain the end.

A study from 2016 called "[Happiness and Identities](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X16301776)" talks about cheating yourself out of meaningful happiness. To earn tickets for a lottery, participants could cheat or earn their winnings fair and square.

Cheaters tried to justify their dishonesty by convincing themselves they were still "good", as they they did nothing wrong, yet thought others would view them as doing something wrong or immoral, hence the need to justify their actions. The way they viewed themselves and how they thought others would view them was in different for a reason. They knew there was wrong in their actions, even if it was allowed by the rules or lack of rules to disallow it.

This contradiction between how they viewed themselves and how they thought others would view them caused greater unhappiness the more they cheated their way. When cheating as a group though, they weren't as bothered by what they did, as they justified their dishonesty as not being purely selfish. Thinking they were helping others in a group allowed greater justification of their behavior.

<div class="pull-right"><center><img src="https://i.imgur.com/B6tuHYu.jpg" /><br/><em><sub><a href="https://driver.grubhub.com/">Source</a></sub></em></center></div>

Authentic happiness depends on living authentically. If you act against your moral compass, then you are in contradiction within yourself and your meaningful, authentic, real self/being is affected. If you care about doing what's right, you go against yourself. If you have a weaker moral compass, then you don't care as much about what you do being right or wrong as long as you get what you want according to your own self-interest and self-centeredness to justify it. No one is perfect, and we can all improve ourselves through self-examination, self-reflection and self-analysis.

We may think the rewards we get by cheating are worth it and make us happy, but the dishonest behavior and dishonesty to ourselves can backfire.

In politics, people can buy politicians to get ahead. Construction contracts can be awarded favorably by buying politicians with kickbacks. If the politician gives the contract to someone, they kickback a return to the politician. This is corruption. The rulers of society are engaging in corruption to give out contracts that are paid by the community pool (i.e. taxpayer money). The contractors didn't really earn the job. And when they do, they often scam and overinflate their prices and even cut back on the quality of construction to make even more profits. 

On Steem, you can buy votes from the rich rulers through bidbots, to buy your reputation, to buy popularity, and to buy rewards that come from the community pool. The rulers get paid to autovote on content regardless of it's merits, regardless of whether they find value in it. You don't earn the vote, you buy it. And like the cutbacks on quality construction that would never honestly have gotten the contract, many posts are not what would normally get people to appreciate or vote on it to get rewarded or raise their reputation.

Additionally, the study on the lottery tickets is similar to how Steem works in a way, because you're not guaranteed to get upvotes, it's a lottery of having the chance of getting upvoted by larger staked accounts that reward you for the work/content you produce. Bidbots are like buying winning lottery tickets. You're not even in the lottery to maybe get an upvote, you buy an upvote to win the lottery each time. That's cheating the lottery, where everyone else has to play the fair game of winning the lottery while you buy your way to winning it.

Also, as more people buy guaranteed winning lottery tickets, there are less chances for others to win in the fair lottery as all the rewards come from the same lottery reward pool. If more people sell their votes, then less people are playing the fair lottery game and more people are selling guaranteed winning lottery tickets.

Trying to get ahead any way we can as long as the rules allow it, as long as there are no rules that disallow, or as long as there is no negative consequences or punishment for doing it -- doesn't mean it's the right thing to do or the best thing to do for ourselves or others involved. I hope more people will rethink their behavior.

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**Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.**

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References:
- [Study Says Cheating May Help You Get Ahead, But You'll Lose More In The End](https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2016/05/07/study-says-cheating-may-help-you-get-ahead-but-youll-lose-more-in-the-end/#3dba677d65ef)
- [Getting a Grad Degree in Cheating](http://www.pewresearch.org/2006/09/26/getting-a-grad-degree-in-cheating/)
- [Infidelity Statistics](https://www.statisticbrain.com/infidelity-statistics/)
- Jan E. Stets, Ryan Trettevik, Happiness and Identities; Social Science Research Volume 58, July 2016, Pages 1-13; DOI: [10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.04.011](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X16301776)

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