The Value of Honesty

Reggie Damone is a low-income worker who receives government-issued food stamps and works in a McDonald's restaurant.

One morning, he was searching for a piece of paper to write a phone number on and came across an envelope that had a cheque for $185,000 in it.

For Reggie, this amount of money could easily have paid his bills for many years and would have changed his life. However, Reggie did not cash this cheque, he simply remembered the wise words his mother had taught him as a child: If you take something, you lose three times that amount —and if you do something good, something good comes back to you.

In stead of cashing the cheque, Reggie went by bus to the lady that the cheque was for, his landlord’s niece, and handed it to her. The lady rewarded Reggie with a $50 note.

Throughout the entire incident, Reggie did not once think about gaining from this situation. In fact, even if the value of the cheque was for a million dollars, Reggie would have still done the same thing.

We live in an age where we judge a person’s worth by what he or she has. However, the true value of a person is, and always will be, the amount that they are willing to give up just to be true to their core beliefs.