Never Cheat Yourself or Others

Never Cheat Yourself or Others

We live in a world of "grey". You understand what I'm saying, right? Think about it and ask yourself how many times have you heard discussions like the following OR have caught yourself saying things similar to the following:

- "I really didn't LIE, I just didn't tell the whole truth!"

- "This company won't miss that package of paper. After all, I've worked here long enough to earn the right to take it home with me!"

- "Clarify what you mean when you ask if I've been unfaithful."

Sad to say, the idea of "situational ethics" has taken firm root in our world and, if we are not careful, we will fall to it's falsehood ourselves.

First of all, let's talk about the idea of "Never cheat others."

You know, if you live by the principles that we have discussed in this blog as well as my podcasts, you will never have to worry about this topic. Living by these principles will cause you to not only do what is EXPECTED of you, but it will cause you to go a step further and do MORE than is expected. Remember our recent discussion on that idea ("Do More Than You Have To")?

Do not fall into the trap of "shorting" your customers, friends, family.......ANYONE! By doing so, you are hurting your future relationship with these people in these different groups as well as hurting yourself.

"I'm not hurting myself! I'm just doing what I have to do to survive!"

Think about that. Again, there is a difference in LIVING and surviving - and, yes, you are simply surviving And, sooner or later, you will cease to do even that.

Let's consider this idea of "I'm just doing what I have to do to survive!" a little further. Have you ever seen the films about animals that get caught in a trap and actually chew their foot off so that they can escape? Extreme, right? Yet, they are doing what is necessary to survive. We've all heard the horror stories of people in a plane crash high up in the snowy country turning to the eating of the human flesh of those that didn't survive the crash. Why did they do it? They were just doing what they had to do to survive!

Extreme point? YES! But, that is an extreme attitude to have! Sooner or later, living with this type of attitude will cause you to be "eaten up" from the inside because you KNOW that this is NOT the way to truly live nor is it the way to treat your customers, friends and/or family.

In a difficult economy like the one we are still experiencing near the end of 2009, the tendency is to "cut back" and give customers a little less for the money. Might I suggest that, instead, it is the time to give MORE than your customers expect?

This is the time that will separate WINNERS from LOSERS - the choice is yours and, in my opinion, you only LOSE when you decide to cheat others.

And, again, you only cheat yourself in the process.

Now, let's turn our thoughts for a few moments to the idea of, "Never cheat yourself."

We have already discussed one way that we cheat ourselves, now let's look at another way that this can happen in our lives.

You are cheating yourself when you fail to do all within your power to better yourself. Think about it.

If you sit around and watch t.v. during all of your spare time - you are cheating yourself. Oh, I understand that there are some entertaining things on t.v. (I love sports, for example) - but, like with anything else, this should be done in moderation.

If you have decided (and, apparently you have or you wouldn't be reading this blog) to spend some time each day listening to podcasts and/or reading positive information then you have made a decision to try to improve yourself as well as your life.

HOWEVER, it is easy to "skimp" on this and to actually "lie" to yourself by not following through. How many books have you bought that you never read? How many books have you bought that you started, but never finished?

You see, we can make ourselves FEEL GOOD about buying that book, for example. We can give ourselves a false sense of accomplishment by pointing out the wonderful books in our own little library. But, it is just that - a FALSE sense of accomplishment.

We begin to CHEAT OURSELVES when we begin to make excuses for our lack of discipline and thus begin to look for ANY source that might make us feel better.

Come on, friend. Let's get REAL and let's get HONEST with ourselves so that we CAN move on toward our goal of self-improvement!

Seriously, what will you ever accomplish by cheating yourself? And, just as was true in the first part of this blog when I mentioned that you end up cheating yourself when you cheat others...the opposite is also true. When you cheat yourself, you end up cheating those around you as well.

So, bottom line - cheating yourself and/or others is a LOSE/LOSE situation!

Being honest with yourself and others is nothing but a WIN/WIN proposition!

I'll all for being a WINNER - what about you?

"Make it an AWESOME day! (Who else is going to do it for you?)"

Mike