Once upon a time in a tiny French village, the townspeople decided to honor their parish priest by each bringing a bottle of wine the following Sunday for the pastor's empty wine barrel. The pastor was delighted, and he asked all in attendance to join him for a glass of wine from the now full barrel. But when the tap was opened, only water came out.
Each villager had brought water instead of wine — thinking that all the others would bring wine and the one bottle of water would never be detected.
Alas, they all had decided to ignore their agreement, and they were all exposed as cheaters.
Cheating has become so normalized in society that people are hardly shocked by it anymore.
There has been a consistent, gradual decline in ethical business practices in the United States for about 50 years. And it's reached new extremes lately in almost every institution that can be measured.
Business leaders, politicians, religious institutions, sports heroes, college students trying to get better grades and parents cheating to get their children into college are just some of the examples that are easy to spot.
That's why I always advise everyone to "act like your mother is watching."
In some cases, cheating can seem to be beneficial, but it is often illegal and always unethical. As cheating becomes increasingly common in schools and workplaces, more people are beginning to ask themselves if cheating is becoming acceptable because it is overlooked so often.
