You can’t beat the system, because there isn’t one.

[Before you start reading, here's a neato disclaimer:
when i started writing this, i didn't know where i was gonna go with it.
for that reason, the begining and the end aren't really congruent. so bear with it. i apologize.]


cheating.
It starts in elementary school, when you break the rules of a friendly game of tag at recess.
pandemonium ensues as you try to justify your act to the other kids on the playground... "i didn't know! i slipped!"
but everyone knows you're just insecure, or your parents beat you, or something like that.

middle school:
you get the latest half-crappy pc game, and the second thing you do is head to gameFAQs to find cheat codes.
But you don't have friends, so you can't play any multiplayer CIV4 or anything... you just end up playing single player mode. And when you use cheats, all you end up doing is make the game not fun anymore.
Way to go, you just wasted $40 on a game that used to be awsome, until you made it boring.

As we progress onto highschool, this style of thinking gets sophisticated.
Bad at bio?
Tape the answers to the test onto the inside label of your waterbottle, so you can read them through the other side!
Predictable Spanish vocab quiz using your own lined paper?
Use an un-extended mechanical pencil tip to pre-etch the words into the paper, then come quiz time just trace 'em.

My mom was talking to another music teacher tody, whose son got suspended at Noble.
he called a classmate a "bad name".
what does he get?
-doesn't have to go to 5:30 AM hokey practice.
-gets to sit in a room and listen to his iPod and watch movies on a kid's laptop instead of going to class
-he can't go to lunch, so they deliver it to him, for free, dessert included.
the teacher of his class didn't report him; the kid he was mean to didn't report him; some random kid did.
Bottom line?
Make fun of people; they get you 3 days of government-funded awsome.

In The Matrix, Neo, Morpheus, and company have to beat the system of the Matrix to save the city Zion from the machines...
In highschool, kids are constantly skirting the rules to get what they want without punishment.
These are the kids who have that smug little "haha" face when they "win", and you just wanna deck 'em. yeah, those ones.

now, here's a shocker.

That style of thinking doesn't get you anywhere.

incredible, isn't it?

In Ecclesiastes 9:2 [NIV], Solomon says, "All share a common destiny- the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not."
[oddly enough, my NKJ bible doesn't have that entire sentence]

anyway, the point is this: everyone dies.
whether or not you believe the Bible is true, you can't deny that statement.
Bill Gates and I will both be dead; when we're both in the ground, he'll be no different to me. All his money, and all that he's done, have to stay here on Earth, remaining with those who are still alive.

Now.
How was that relevant?
here:
People "beat the system" on things like tests, games, curfew, you name it.
Why can't you apply that style of thinking apply to life as a whole?
Sure, after you graduate you can still beat the system. You can lie at work to get around boring meetings, scam people on ebay, the list goes on and on. But life!
You can't cheat Life.
Really, people have tried.
It can't be done.

No matter how much cheating you've done in life, you still die.
There is no elixir of life that makes you life forever.
Sure, you could be a centi-billionaire. That might get you REMEMBERED forever.
But a memory is only around as long as people are there to carry it on.

The cold, hard fact is that Life isn't a "system".
you can't beat it.
there's no loopholes.
no cheat codes.
you die.

Now, i'm sure you're sitting here, possibly angry with me.
You're thinking, "why did i just read all of that? it's common sense; everyone knows you can't not die."

Right!
of course you knew it.
Now think about it.

You can't beat life.
You have to play by the rules.
What are the rules?
simple.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Oh!
and, Love your neighbor as yourself.

see what i'm getting at?
of course you do, you're an educated american!

So what happens if you don't play by the rules?
well, simple.
you die.

And when you do play by the rules, you die...
and live forever.

In a nutshell:
You could cheat thoughout life... but that's dumb!
Because while "playing by the rules" won't get you unearned riches, long drug-enduced stupors, and such, it WILL get you eternal life.
Think about it.
One of these decisions makes sense.