Loss of honesty the first sign of corruption

THE EDITOR, Madam:

A loss of honesty is the first sign of corruption in the life of human beings, rich or poor, as they are consumed by foolish, immature, and self-serving quests for power and control.

Too many, rich and poor, can’t bring themselves to believe there is anything else in life but what they want it to be, and so they try to make it so – any way they can.

Despite many of today’s leaders and the self-serving motives used to legitimise their ongoing, self-aggrandising, disinformation campaigns, the truth of their lives is always revealed in the end – as they say, ‘in the numbers’. For the corrupt and the wealthy, maintaining their riches has always been their first priority, not leadership, and there is a lesson to be learnt here.

No man or woman in this world, rich or poor, escapes the final victory of death over life, yet many of us live our lives as if we have more right to be here than others. At the same time, all too many care very little about anyone else’s rights but their own, forgetting that one needs no right to be born or to die.

Under the eyes of a watchful God, the rich man, like the poor man, has nothing that can be hidden from the final truth. The question he or she fails to answer, and dreads to face, is if wealth will serve them for all eternity.

The poor man has no such dilemma, and is simply given the promise taken from his labour that his pride is well-earned, and that honesty will be his salvation. The rich man has only the grave, with little chance of true pride when honesty is lost.

ED MCCOY BOKEELIA