“Have you ever heard of the rewards program?” My dad used to ask me this all the time. Anytime I got in trouble, talked back to my parents, or didn’t clean my room he would sit me down and ask me, “Have you ever heard of the rewards program?” 

It was a rhetorical question; of course, I knew what “the program” was. However, I would just sit there quietly and let him tell me yet again what it was. 

“The rewards program is a program between you and me. It’s how you get the things you want. I get them for you because you have done something good, but when you do something bad and when you misbehave, you do not get anything. Do you see how that works?”

Again a rhetorical question. 

He would then leave me with these final sage words: “you do good things, you get good things.”

When I was little I never really gave that much consideration. But nonetheless it felt like common sense to me and I’ve followed it with great dedication as I’ve grown up. Unfortunately I’ve seen so many people blatantly ignore this rule and consequently always ended up above me. For a while I felt like everywhere I looked I saw people doing their absolute worst and receiving only the best. 

It took me a while to realize that much like the English language, there is an exception to every rule. Those people are the exception, but that also means as that exception they have to live with what they do. They had to live with a conscience as heavy as stone. Therefore how can they ever really come out above me if they are so weighed down by all the things they’ve done?

It amazes me how many people in today’s political climate seem to have forgotten that basic rule that I learned as a child. It baffles me that so many people in this country could vote for a person that has a moral compass pointed so far south. 

I have worked and worked in my life because I truly believe that only by doing good things will I get what I want. Maybe the cheater’s way is the faster way, but it is certainly not the higher way. Even though there may always be that person out there who seems to be against me, I will never choose to stoop to their level. If I do good things, I will get good things.