Why do people cheat?

Actually, no one teaches us the basics of cheating. Even as a child many times we try to cheat or lie to cover up our mistakes or to get some things and we label them as child pranks. Lying is an integral part of cheating, they are two sides of the same coin, above question can be reframed as Why do people lie? We all use different excuses from time to time to get away with some things that we want to avoid. Technically we all lie at some time or other in our lives and we don't even notice it or don't even realize that we are lying, even if somebody points out our mistake we don't take it seriously because we believe that as long as it doesn't harm anyone or if we are not using it for some personal gain or very selfish motive lying fine. We strongly believe that it doesn't qualify as cheating or lying if it doesn't harm anyone. 

We start the act of cheating or lying at a very young age without even knowing that we are doing it. If you observe carefully it comes to us naturally, we have to teach kids not to lie or not to cheat but they learn these things on their own or we can say it is natural. No parent teaches their child the art of cheating or lying but all kids do it as a child. Even in the ancient scriptures like Mahabharat or Srimad Bhagavatam, we can see that there are many instances where characters like Krishna used cheating or lying to their advantage. Krishna as a child was involved in many pranks which involved stealing, telling lies to her mother, and things like that. All Hindus read these stories with devotion without realizing that somewhere it creates an impression that it's fine to cheat when it suits you. I am not saying that because of Krishna's character or some stories in scriptures where cheating is justified, people cheat, then people from other religions who read scriptures without such stories should not cheat or lie, but that's not the case, that's why I believe that this tendency of cheating comes naturally to us.

Normally we use or perform acts of cheating or lying to cover up something that we don't want others to know or in some situations where we think telling the truth might put us in some trouble. We do it out of fear of getting exposed or out of greed. Even in very serious and honest relationships (like husband-wife), people cheat, they try to cover up their dishonest acts or mistakes. Many use cheating out of fear of getting caught (this is common for children and kids), many use it to cover up their dishonest acts (in relationships) and many use it just because it's convenient to do it (we call it harmless because it doesn't hurt anyone). Temptation of cheating or lying under many circumstances is very difficult to resist, suppose you are planning to spend all your Sunday at home and your friend calls you for a game of tennis at 6 AM in the morning, you don't want to wake up that early on weekend but also don't want to hurt your friends feeling then you make some excuse like you are not feeling well or you have to go somewhere at 7 so can't come. We give some excuses like this many times and we don't even realize that we cheated or lied to our friend. 

So, if it's natural, is it okay to cheat or not? I think we should avoid it as much as possible but honestly, it's impossible not to do it totally. I think it depends on the situation, as long as it doesn't harm anyone, it's okay. I am not going to go into technical details about what qualifies as cheating or lying and what doesn't. I think people cheat or lie because it comes naturally, it's an act of defense that our brain uses to avoid certain uncomfortable situations. Does this mean we can teach our kids that it's okay to cheat or lie in certain situations? And then who will decide what are those situations? What if they develop a habit of cheating or lying? Aren't we teaching them something unethical or dangerous? It's very complicated. I think we can compare it with drinking (alcohol), it might be useful in moderate amounts, should be allowed after a certain age where one can use their judgment when to use it and when not, but better to avoid it totally if we can. My view is we should try to avoid it as much as we can because always remember that if we tell the truth we don't have to remember what we said last time.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)