Who I am when no one is looking

I teach. (*nopes I'm not a teacher, keep trying .... if u wish... hahhaha)

One of the things I teach is Cyber-Grab (Piracy... Burning & ripping CDs to MP3... pirated VCDs... software....games...plagarism etc etc).

I love to share a personal example of what I heard our wise teacher Mr Hee Guan shared with us before. There was once during our gathering Mr Hee Guan gathered us (as best as i could quote him):

"Hey young people you know... life is not easy.... In our life people can steal many different and precious things from us. Our happiness, $$$, loved ones or even virginity (in some bad cases la). But there's ONE thing, ONE precious thing in your life which no one one can ever steal away from you though you may choose to throw it away yourselves. Do you know what is it?

(I thought really hard but no smart answer)

And that one thing is your I*N*T*E*G*R*I*T*Y "
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Wow!!!! What a big word...integrity... what's that??? I was already in the university then but this word came as a big word to me. Well I'm the cheena, chinese kind. Big words like that requires me to check the dictionary.

I*N*T*E*G*R*I*T*Y is more than honesty. It's choosing to do the right things even when no one is looking.

At that point in time I secretly wished that I could have heard it earlier because I was reminded how I throw my integrity away on a daily basis. The earlier days before our current ezy-link card system comes about, Singapore still uses transit-link card. With transit-link card bus commuters select the bus fare themselves. The bus ride from my home to the university is more than an hour, that is about the full fare of $1.00 or $1.20 but I will select the 65cents fare regardless of how long the bus journey is - rationalizing within myself that my family is not rich and I need to save whatever spare I could to better use. Choosing to do the right thing is super difficult can.....but I've come to learn that it's not impossible.

Just try for the 1st three times doing it. And you realized that it gets less & less difficult each time. Usually it's the first time that seems unattainable. But that's rubbish I assure you. Remember -> the brain becomes what the brain does.

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Back to sharing with my students:
With the evolvement of technology & the Net there is now more & more greys areas. Pirated vcds, cds... seems like so many people out there are doing it..... how do u share with the kids..... or even convince them of something tat's so precious (integrity) Man..... (I need help). Though many people out there are doing it doesn't mean it is right. I think I was given a chance to go thru the 65cents days so i can have a good laugh over myself for the NOW as well.

HAHAHA.