To be or not to be-- that is the Question.

Today was relatively eventful in my now relatively mundane days.

I was practically traveling the ups and downs of emotions.

There was a test. 30 MCQ questions. I did what i could to prepare even though it's "just objective questions". But just because you do your revision doesn't mean everyone else does.

Unsurprisingly, people around me were cheating.

I have prepared myself mentally for it of course, each time there is a test, but i still can't help but feel a strange pang each time it happens.

Maybe i'm being overly sensitive, i do not know.

Seeing people cheating in tests, however mediocre or light the test people make it seem, brings me back to my earlier school years.

I've been on both sides of this coin. I hate to say it but i cheated before myself.

Maybe being where i am now and having stopped the habit myself, i begin to see how unfair cheating actually is. Not only to the people who have actually bothered and dedicated their time on revision, but on yourself. Won't you at least give yourself a chance at putting your abilities to the test and find out where you truly stand? This is only a small part of the huge world. If you truly can't do well in academics, maybe there are better plans for you. Why try to prove otherwise to the world and to yourself? There is no point even if you do well in college if you had to cheat your way through.

And then, i wonder; Where do we draw the line?

If in school, it's okay to cheat, it makes it okay to cheat in the working world out there. It makes it okay to cheat in politics, in the office and everywhere else. Then justice will be nothing but a mockery.

I have begun to realise that sometimes, some teachers or lecturers themselves do not really care and for various reasons, no longer uphold the integrity when it involves exams.

From different perspectives, could they be doing that out of pity? In the name of helping students who undoubtedly face crazier expectations from parents and society today? If that were truly so, does that even come close to justifying cheating?

What do you think?

As i mused and walked back from class, i realise precisely why despite my own judgements, i dare not say anything to advise or tell my classmates what i think and feel about this all. Simply because i do not have that courage to and more so because i know even if i don't cheat, in many other ways, that doesn't make me better than that.

But deep down too, i understand that somehow, by deed or word, it is my responsibility to help them see the dishonesty in cheating. So i will let God do with this how He will. And in this way, in my uncertainties and disabilities to do much, i am very much human.