Cheaters Never Prosper
Stealing credit feels good at first — but real pride only comes from genuine effort. Read one writer's childhood lesson on why cheating always leaves you feeling hollow.
Last updated 8 September 2026
Cheaters Never Prosper
By Shanti Marion Prakash
*I had a bird named Gale.
Who was a male.
I wish he wasn’t so pale.
Coz then I’d put him up for sale! *
This poem marked my first brush with Imposter Syndrome. At age 9 ½. It was a poetry assignment. And we all had to write a 4-line poem. This poem, which received high praise from my teacher and classmates, had in fact been written by my friend, Su.
I wanted adulation of my own. So, I brought this poem home and passed it off as my own work to the OOHs and AHHs of my unsuspecting family.
Strangely, the affirmation that I was so generously given did not give me the satisfying high I had expected to feel. I was perturbed. What I felt instead was an empty echoey sensation in the pit of my tummy that dragged me deep into a chasm of guilt and shame.
And I learnt that very day that accolades make you feel like a winner only if you’ve actually run the race. Because Cheaters Never Prosper.