Do You Have to Be Evil to Succeed?

Is decency a disadvantage?

Photo by Nick Coleman on Unsplash

I’m 45 now and as I look back at my life I see numerous situations I could have leveraged into a lot more money. I’m not talking about mistakes where I failed to perceive an opportunity. I’m talking about opportunities that I recognized and intentionally rejected because they didn’t comply with my sense of personal morality.

When I look at the lives of some of the people I grew up with, it’s not so difficult to deduce where their assets came from. As a matter of decorum, society conditions us not to consider ill-gotten gains. This lack of awareness is similar to the concept that we shouldn’t discuss politics or religion at a family dinner.

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

But our willful ignorance does not provide us with a reprieve from the consequences of evil. I personally believe that it is better to adopt a moral code and live a life of honesty and dignity. However, it’s disingenuous to say that liars and cheaters do not gain a significant advantage. We must also not fail to acknowledge that some of these disreputable people escape consequences entirely.

Cheating

I’ve been fortunate enough in life in that I’ve always been able to do well on tests without cheating. In school, I flirted with the…