Cheating? No.

I know National Examination stuffs are no longer hot, but well, I want to post it anyway.

I know cheating is common. I know cheating is not serious for a lot of people here. But, I was surprised anyway. Still am.

I'm surprised at how many people think it's trivial. That it doesn't matter. I'm surprised at how many people think that it's a justification for them to cheat just because others do. I'm surprised at... how people are not ashamed to admit that they cheated.

Wow. That surprised me the most. It's like cheating is not wrong, like cheating is okay.

No. It's not okay. Really.

First of all, to make things straight, this 'cheating' I'm talking about is the answer-asking, answer-giving,  answer-googling, answer-sharing-via-gadget whatever in a test (aka The Test-Cheating); because cheating is pretty broad (The Affair-Cheating, The Game-Cheating, Marking-Up-Proposals-Cheating, so on) but let's just close it to this case first.

I'm not being a hypocrite. I've cheated of course, in my younger days. I wanted to have a good mark so bad, I cheated. I even frowned at a guy when I'm in junior high, because he doesn't want to cheat. It dumbfounded me but I cheated anyway. I know what it feels to cheat. I know what I want from cheating. I know that it's way easier than studying till my brain goes disco.

But I stopped. I stopped cheating ever since I'm entered high school. I stopped cheating when I realized there are more things at stake when I cheated. When I realized that studying is not just a matter of good marks. When I realized that there are more things in me that I have to believed in. When I had a guilt trip at what am I doing praying to God before the exam if I were to cheat anyway?


Cheating is lying.

Lying to your teacher, lying to your parents, lying to your friends, and lying to yourself. Lying that you're doing a good job, lying that you've studied enough, lying that you're doing the right thing.

It's shameful and bad, and it pictures insecurities.

It shows that you don't believe in own capability to do those things yourself, that you're insecure if others don't help you.

I know that cheating is not necessarily done by people who are dumb, but I can say for sure that people who cheated are lazy.

Lazy and dishonest. Cheating is a shortcut; getting things you want without the exact effort it required.

The only thing you achieved from cheating other than the marks or achievements you don't deserved are less pain in the ass for being honest.

And those, my friend, are what I think about cheating.



Hypocrite. Idealist like you won't live long.

Idealist?

Idealist you say?

No. This is not about being ideal or not. This is a matter of principle. My principle is that I don't cheat. Not anymore. My principle is that, I don't want to lul myself with dishonesty. It hurts my conscience. It hurts my pride that I have to lower myself like that, that I have to be dependent over something trivial like grades. It lets my heart goes to a guilt trip, knowing that I don't believe in God I have prayed to, since I prayed to Him that I wish for doing a good job and getting a good mark; prayed-and-cheating-anyway is the lowest form of believing, I'd say. It's embarrassing that all the things I'll get from this later on are fruits of an evildoing called cheating. Oh God. I hate cheating. So bad.

And I didn't say that I hate people who cheat. Because I don't. Sort of.

It's cheating that I despised, and to cheat or not to cheat is a person's choice. I have no right to interfere with that. They have their reasons and I don't care.

Because I can't do anything about it. What I can do is prevent myself from cheating.

And maybe later on, teach my kids that cheating is not okay, that cheating is a form of dishonesty and dishonesty is bad.

I'm not going to start the cheat-corruption shit because no, as much as it was the same act of being dishonest, cheating has become a serious problem right about now, because people don't think it's bad anymore.

Wait. Maybe some people do, but they don't think it worth the fight. At least when it comes to corruption, no one agrees it's good and everyone thinks it should be punished severely.

Cheating?

Not so much.


You may say I'm a dreamer (not singing) for thinking that I could help it (or prevent or whatever), but I am here and I'm not the only person that thinks cheating is bad or the only person that won't cheat if they can help it. So there.




p.s. My high school is not exactly cheat-free (surprise surprise! ...NOT), but... I am relieved that people around me understand how I hate them and never in my high school life, asked me to give them answers on exams (anymore). Thank you guys. You know that it's hard for me to say no.

Who are You Trying to Please?

There's a statement I found on web some time ago, and it went: "I'm the kind of person that will try to make everyone else smile, but when I need to smile, there's no one for me" or something along those lines.

And on web too, I found another statement like this: "If I were grooming and making myself look cute, it is solely to make myself happy. I did that for me, not for anyone to judge." or something along those lines.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong about those two statements (because nothing is wrong in opinions, duh) but these statements are interesting and I wanted to make something out of them. They seemed to have no relation whatsoever but for me, they do. Somehow. But hey, I'm not going to talk about the substance of those statements; I'll talk about what it have in common and what of it that makes it interesting.

So enough with the prologue thing, let's get on with this.


What I get from these two questions is that, somehow, people (or society, whatever) mattered.

They do--no doubt--and it is our choice whether to be dependent over their existence and judgement or not.  Wait. No. They will always matter, and we will always be dependent over them in a way but it is our choice to care or not to care.

Now people mostly torn in these two category. People who care and people who don't care.

Because we are living with others, most of us obviously wanted to achieve harmony among us, right? That's why they mattered. And when they mattered, somehow we want them to like us, or to think nicely of us, or whatever. Or the least, we will do things that we think won't bother others to the point they will hate us because of it. Sometimes these feelings are there naturally, because, well, because you're just that kind of person. But sometimes they are there because everyone's like that, or those are values you learned through schools and society; and you choose to keep it that way.

Those are people who care. When people care, that kind of thing matters.

When people don't care, that kind of thing is stupid.

"What's the point of living for others?" they said. "You live a life for people to judge?" they said.

When people don't care, they see themselves as individuals with individual needs MORE than they see themselves as part of society. "Yes we live with others, yes they sort of matter in a way or two, but who cares if they don't like the way I do this or that?" they said. And they're not wrong. Certainly not wrong.

I mean, who cares right?

It turns out that a lot of people do.

And this is my point.

Sometimes, being recognized by others, being liked by others, doing things that makes other people happy is exactly what (some) people need. In short, accepted by society, treated nicely by others and whatnots are people-who-care's the so-called individual needs. In the other hand, doing things they want to and the way they want to, looking silly and doing whatever whenever wherever or something like that are people-who-don't-care's individual needs.

So when people who don't care think that it's more important for them to do things they like, that much importance is also applied for people who care, but for different matter. And that is, others' opinion, or something.




So if you ask me which one is better, none of it is better. None of it is stupid, because what's important is different for everyone and who am I to judge others' priority?

Everyone has their own way to be happy, to be content, to feel comfortable and why are we so nosy about how people are selfish or  how people live like robots for their family?



So when it comes to the question, who are you trying to please?

The answer should be you.




Whether you are pleasing yourself by doing things your way...

...or pleasing yourself by pleasing others...

...it doesn't matter.


What matter is that you're happy with that. If you're not happy, then you should think again if you're doing the right one.

Or doing it for the right matter.

Because, surely, one cannot be happy just with caring every single demand that came from everyone and one cannot be happy just with doing things the so-called way that they wanted to every time.

So yeah.

Be happy!