"Trust is like an eraser. It gets smaller and smaller after every mistake." - Anonymous
As crazy as it sounds, cheating is one of the most consistent emotional torture we've all experienced at one time or the other. Either you are saintly or sinful, steady or haphazard, homely or wild, one person out there will treat you to that old, senile act of wickedness. Unsurprisingly, we've also at one point in our lives knowingly or unknowingly left someone with the overwhelming feeling of being cheated before, though our narrative may be defensive and different.
Cheating and Lies - Two Jolly Friends
Let's be frank here, we've all said some untrue things before. Either it's a pure, cold lie or the legendary white lie that helps the culprit to deceive even himself, we are all guilty of telling lies. However, is cheating a byproduct of telling lies? Or, is telling lies the most obvious announcement that someone is a cheat? It's funny how something we treat so casually can have a devastating impact. Truth is, a liar is a cheat; and someone who cheats will cover up with more lies - at least at the initial stage.
So, why do people cheat?
I can go on and on about the obvious reasons why people cheat/tell lies. Some of those reasons when drawn up may even make the cheater look like a saint while the person being cheated is painted as a devil who deserves the cheating hell. However, cheating is unjustifiable. It's nothing but pure wickedness towards one another. But I said we've all cheated at one time or the other. Yes, humans have the tendency to be incredibly wicked. The level of wickedness just differs.
Back to why people cheat, the reasons may range from revenge to anger to low self esteem. I've seen people draw linkages between cheating and overambitious behavior before. New TV series Special Force: Lioness even had a part where a marine told a young lady, "In war, if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying." That explains the parallelism between cheating and ambition.
Have I been cheated on before?
Yes, I've been cheated on a lot of things before. Betrayal friends, cheating girlfriend, business rival using dark arts to subjugate rivalry, etc. You can have your pick. I think the most hurtful one was that of the wicked business rival who ruined our business. Around 2008 I managed a football viewing centre with my uncle. After a troublesome start we eventually steadied and started providing steady services. Three years later, a new guy showed up just a few blocks away from us with his own viewing centre.
When I saw the new rival, I wasn't sad since we already own the market in that area. In fact, I got excited because we were getting too comfortable after a year of success. We needed someone to keep us on our toes. What I never factored in was how devious the new guy would be. A couple weeks after the guy showed up, we started having problems. Thirty minutes to the start of a very important match, we got to our viewing centre only to realise our satellite dish settings had been tampered with. By the time we got a technician to fix the issue the football match had been on for 20 minutes, most of our customers already went to the other guy to watch the important match.
Funnily enough, we assumed it was a serious wind that ruined the settings. This issue happened a couple more times that year and we eventually lost most of our customers to him. They deemed us unreliable. About a year or so later we were out of business while he was doing well. We eventually got to know about the evil deed when he had a fallout with one of his guys. It was the aggrieved one who came to us and told us all the atrocities he committed to bring our business down. It was quite painful, but we moved on. The guy was there for about two years before he eventually ended his business due to lack of profit. A very welcome outcome for a wicked fellow.
We got past the hurt by focusing our energy on a different endeavor. I've seen the guy a couple of times after then but never held it against him. That's how we were able to move on, by forgiving and learning from our mistakes. God knows I'll never fall to a devious rival again. I'll rather fight fire with fire than let it go. No, affliction will never arise the second time. Once beaten, twice shy!
