Cheating or any other form of malpractice ruins lives. Trust me! I've seen the other side and it's really ugly. Not many may understand the consequences as it helps them to get out of a jam or escape temporarily but, one will only understand its repercussions a few years later.
I'm sure that you've all heard enough about how it's unethical, immoral, undermines the sanctity of the system and so on. But I'm not here to pile on the gyan that you already know or have easy exposure to... I'm here to make you understand yourself on a deeper level to make you aware of how it messes up your entire personality, per se.
To make it easier to understand, I'll be illustrating both sides of the coin or rather your psyche. Hope it really helps and shall drive my message across to you all more effectively.
The devil wears Prada in spite of having nada
When an individual resorts to cheating or any other form of malpractice and somehow succeeds, it leads to developing a false sense of accomplishment in spite of not having the capability to even attempt, forget succeed. On one side, the fiendish part of our personality gets a boost to repeat the behaviour going forward, which makes it a part of our natural personality. This, in turn, makes us prone to searching for shortcuts which are immoral, unethical and means that might even be illegal.
On the flip side, we aren't aware that we are unknowingly developing low self-esteem, self-confidence and guilt that affects us in crucial stages of our life going forward. These issues not only affect our educational or professional lives, it also affects our personal lives and relationships too, including our mental well-being.
Having nada or nothing when it comes to our skills but portraying as if we are experts, we unknowingly also develop a false identity of being pretentious which may work temporarily but will easily be seen through, by experts and/or experienced people. The backlash that one's reputation suffers during an event like that only spells doom!
The pressure is too much to measure
Another very important aspect that one generally doesn't realise or doesn't acknowledge as one is too busy plotting how to cheat is the sheer pressure, anxiety and tension which one goes through. The anxiety of ensuring that one doesn't get caught, the fear of getting caught, the consequences of what may happen if one indeed gets caught and so on are some of the thought processes that keep running in the background.
On the flip side, we're too busy trying to execute our plan to cheat and are too engrossed in ensuring that we don't mess up which makes us pass up the above feelings as those related to the execution rather than how it is in fact brewing in the background, only to affect us later. Our motivation levels are also something that takes a major hit as we're negatively motivated to seek an easy way out rather than putting in the required effort. It's like agreeing to play a game only if we have the cheat codes for it, which clearly exhibits that our motivation is on the lower side. This behaviour in the long run makes us prone to escape issues and not focus on the resolution as we're conditioned to only attempt to resolve points only if the system can be scammed.
The ramification on the reputation
All is well when it ends well, but just in case it doesn't... the blowback or backlash is colossal. First, it leaves an irreparable black mark that taints one's life. Two, in order to get out of being caught, most individuals again resort to illegal, unethical and immoral activities like creating fake documents, which again, is a repetition of that vicious cycle that landed one in this situation in the first place.
Last but not the least, organisations today go through stringent background checks/verification and have dedicated a large portion of their resources to ensure that they hire the right people. It also protects them from legal hassles and mainly, protects their reputation that has been built over the years. There are databases of people backlisted that HR personnel have access to. Also, this has legal consequences for the individual as it amounts to fraud and cheating.
In short, if someone's caught, it's nothing but drought. Putting rhymes aside, an individual will be considered a criminal and that's something that shall make people around us never trust us.
How one can remain calm before an exam is something that I've touched upon enough times and you can check out my previous columns for the same. But today's message was a direct, no-sugar-coating peek into the future from a person who has seen some amazing individuals lose amazing opportunities because of one such mistake in their lives.
I really hope this serves as a guide to ensure that uou never get stuck in such a situation.
With lots of love and concern,
Adarsh Benakappa Basavaraj
"Your Coach"
