Integrity When No One Is Watching

7 days ago

I visited the mall yesterday evening, and what I witnessed was baffling. You know, I used to think that people are more conscious when they realize that there is a CCTV camera in a place, and by then, they can keep their theft habit aside and respect themselves, but that wasn't the case yesterday.

For some people, they are so addicted to stealing, they can't do without it. It seems that it's right there in their blood, and it takes a lot of work within to get out of that mess.

This reminded me of my cousin, who is almost 50 years old now and yet not married, not because she isn't beautiful enough to be attracted by a man but because she has a bad habit; stealing, which had scared men away from her.

She lived in my father's house for many years before I got married, and on several occasions, I caught her stealing from my mom, even from my dad's wallet a lot of times, and she would beg me not to disclose her. At a point, she stated using a chewing stick to unlock my daddy's door just to have access and steal.

I had no choice but to report the issue, and that was when she received help, but not for long; she resumed her stealing habit. She confesses that she doesn't know what used to push her into the habit, but then, it is what it is.

Any man that comes in contact with her would detect the habit just a few months into the relationship, and that will be the end of it. To date, she is still not married and still not free from the stealing habit. It has caused her a lot of harm, sadly.

That's by the way. Yesterday at the mall, a woman was trying to pick a watermelon from the many inside a basket. Each watermelon had a different price tag according to the size. So what she did was that she removed the price tag from a small watermelon and exchanged it for a bigger one she wanted to carry so she could pay less than she was supposed to pay for choosing a bigger watermelon.

Unfortunately, a staff member saw her behind the camera, rushed in immediately, and returned the price tag the way it was previously arranged. She was embarrassed; she felt so shameful but was lucky she wasn't reported to the manager. That was how she shamefully carried herself out of the mall.

It was an experience, and I will say, those little thefts can never elevate someone. Integrity means doing the right thing when no one is watching you, it's a virtue to uphold no matter how much you are suffering in life,there is no reasonable excuse to doing bad.Better to ask for help than destroy your reputation with irrelevant things.