I’m A Cheater

Cheating. Lying. Dishonesty.

How do you feel about these three words? They’re all negatives, aren’t they?

If you think there’s something good about these things, I’d probably think you’re a notorious thief who made himself a millionaire by scamming people online. Or maybe you’re just too naive to see the good in everything. Or perhaps, you’re the modern womanizer who hides different chics in every social media accounts that you have.

Well, in our own subtly evil and wicked ways, we all are cheaters. 

Do you still remember how you extended your neck and widened your eyes during your Math exams?

Do you still remember how you told your parents you’ll be doing some school projects but instead had weekend getaways with your friends? (or your lover hmmm)?

Do you still remember how you told your friend how sexy she looks in her dress despite the evident excessive curves that begged to be released?

Do you still remember the days you told other people you’re okay when in fact deep inside, you just wanted to let it all burst out?

Told you. We are all liars and cheaters.

We all do that for different kinds of reasons. Sometimes, it’s our only way to survive, to enjoy without being scolded, to let other people feel good about themselves, or to prevent others from bugging us. 

Now here’s another truth: No one would ever admit they cheated. Admitting your dishonesty is so uncomfortable.

Because aside from running the risk of breaking trust and ruining credibility, admit it or not but cheating and lying sometimes feel good. It’s a guilty pleasure. You wouldn’t do that in the first place and repeat some over and over again if it doesn’t benefit you. 

But let me take the first step.

I confess. I’m a cheater. 

And I’m probably the greatest cheater you’ll ever find. Virtually, at least.

I grew up receiving lots of compliments about my artworks. For those who don’t know, I’m a traditional artist who also made some gigs crafting room decors and face portraits years ago. 

At first, I thought I got this talent from my father, who was a very talented man when it comes to arts and crafts.

But looking back, I realized I just cheated my way through it.

I clearly remember how it all started. During my second year in grade school, we had this drawing project where we should draw the little guy from our book, exactly how it is. All I knew back then was to draw stick figures.

I actually asked my father to help me on that project since I know how good he was when it comes to it. But he refused. Instead, he taught me how to draw it exactly as it is. 

The next thing I knew, he brought me a cooking gas. From that early age, I thought he was about to burn the book because I’m too annoying. But what he did next left me in awe. He poured a subtle amount of gas on my bond paper and placed it over the book’s page of the little boy.

“See that lines more clearer now?”, my confused little head nodded.

“Good. Now start tracing that one.” And I did. 

I just followed every line and stroke and did it the best I can. The next thing I knew, I was very amazed! I couldn’t believe I was able to draw that cool stuff exactly the way it is. And you guessed it right. I received the highest remark with that sketch.

That was the first and only time my father taught me how to cheat.

But that same thing started to build up my confidence in Arts. The appreciation and recognition I received during my younger years encouraged me to enhance my craft. Over the years, I was able to create my own art style. I wasn’t a cheater anymore. But the thing I loved the most about Arts is how it became my refuge whenever I’m stressed or in pain.

In fact, there was a time in my college years when I was deeply heartbroken and the thing that helped me move on is through making human portraits. Yes, I’m into Arts but I never tried sketching human figures until that first huge heartbreak.

I used the pain and turned it into a passion. That portraiture skill eventually landed me some gigs but I eventually stopped it. I decided to stop traditional arts for good and I think I’ll leave that story for next time. 

I am so into Arts that it became my sweet escape during my younger years and even until now. It’s my kind of therapy to express myself in ways words cannot. I may have stopped producing traditional Arts but my creative skill is still there. I currently use it for content writing, copywriting, currency trading, and website building. In short, I just made it more digitalized.

I’m still a cheater.

If you’d ask me the quickest and easiest way to get things done, I’d say:

CHEAT YOUR WAY THROUGH IT. JUST CHEAT.

Truth is, everything you ever wanted has already been done by other people. 

Want to be a great cook? Grab a recipe book or watch cooking videos.

Want to stay healthy and fit? Have yourself a proven workout and meal plan.

Want to be a successful trader? Stalk successful traders.

You don’t necessarily have to start everything from scratch. Everything you need is just one click away if you’re just willing to be diligent enough. 

The cheat code is easy. If you want something, look at how successful people did it and then do it yourself.

As Jim Rohn said, success leaves clues. What you want to have has already been done by others. So why waste your time, energy, and resources when you can just copy and paste the proven strategies other successful people made?

There’s no excuse actually. Everything is just at your fingertips. But you will never find it unless you do the searching. Again, as Jim Rohn said, finding is always reserved for those who ask and find. It doesn’t come just because you want or need it. You have to do something.

Here’s another quote from Tony Robbins:

“Long ago, I realized that success leaves clues, and that people who produce outstanding results do specific things to create those results. I believe that if I precisely duplicated the actions of others, I could reproduce the same quality of results that they had.”

Tony Robbins

You know what? We should all be thankful we’re born in this era when everything we need is laid in front of us. We just need to be smart enough to where we should put our focus on.

The technology could either make or break you. Focus on negative and false successes and you’ll get that one. Focus on positive and encouraging inputs and you become one. You always get what you seek. 

As a young artist, I already realized these things even before. But I also realized how important it is to cheat carefully and responsibly. Otherwise, I’ll lose my identity. I don’t want to be that kind of copycat. 

So how do you preserve being yourself while applying the strategies you’ve learned?

Simple. Create your own story.  

Your story is what sets you apart from others

Sure, you can copy all the proven strategies out there. But you can’t copy someone else’s story. Uhm, that’s awkward.

Their story is what makes them unique. The same way of how it can make you set apart from all the other people out there.

Your story is the combination of all your life values, perspective, and experiences. If you become successful enough and you eventually become the one who is worth copying for, then that is what will set you apart from your copiers.

You see, I didn’t create this article from scratch. My thoughts and the way I think are highly influenced by the people I follow. By the people I “copy”. Now see how impactful that kind of influence is. You become what you consistently follow. You just can’t pour a cup of coke if what you’ve got is a cup of Kopiko Brown coffee. 

But I also know I’m way different from the people I’ve followed. I’m firm about who I am and who I’m not.

I know not all strategies that worked for others may work for me. I just get what I think works best for me and scrape off the ones that aren’t helpful. And once I get that “master steps”, I customize them based on my own values, personality, and experiences. 

You know, there’s a thin line between copying and creating your own effective results — and that is creativity. 

Creativity allows you to think outside the box.

In fact, the most creative people are the best cheaters and liars you can ever find.

Imagine those who are cheating in their relationships. They could come up with the best stories and best excuses not to get caught. 

Well, I’m guilty of coming up with the best and most heart-touching excuses when I always came late to school during my college years. I even got as far as telling there’s a vehicular accident on my way that made the traffic so bad.

You probably did the same in your company as well. When you just felt like it and you lied about having the headache, stomachache, and all the other aches except heartache.

You see, lying and cheating can make you a very creative person simply because you know you should craft out the best stories and excuses to make them believable. And you have to do it with different variations. Otherwise, you’ll get caught if you gave them one reason all the time.

But those types of dishonesty I mentioned above are not something to be proud of. Instead, be the good cheater. Be the cheater that makes yourself grow for the better. Be the cheater that copies and applies the things that are only beneficial to oneself and others.

Dishonesty and Creativity

The link between dishonesty and creativity just came to my mind when I wrote this. But my curiosity led me to find the scientific answers to whether there’s really a significant correlation between the two.

And here’s what I found.

There’s psychological research about the link between dishonesty and creativity that implies lying makes a person creative by making him feel less bound by conventional rules.

In this particular research, they experimented on a group of participants telling them they’ll be compensated based on the number of matrices they can solve. They are asked to self-report their own scores to allow participants to inflate their own performance. 

In the next experiment, the participants were asked to provide a word (e.g., cold) that best relates with the given sets of three words that are presented to them (e.g., sore, shoulder, sweat). 

It turned out that the 59% of participants who inflated their score in the matrix experiment showed a higher level of creative thinking on the second experiment than those who honestly self-reported their matrix scores. 

“We turned the relationship upside down, in a sense,” says Gino. “Our research raises the possibility that one of the reasons why dishonesty seems so widespread in today’s society is that by acting dishonestly we become more creative — and this creativity may allow us to come up with original justifications for our immoral behavior and make us likely to keep crossing ethical boundaries.”

Final Thoughts

Cheating is one of the easiest ways to get things done. But it isn’t always the best thing to do. There are kinds of dishonesty that would cause other people’s misery. On the other hand, there are kinds of dishonesty that would make others feel good about themselves. There are also kinds of dishonesty that would help you improve yourself.

So what can I say? Cheat your way through success but cheat responsibly.