For the school fun-run, you're supposed to do three full laps of the field. It's tiring, and partway through, a couple of kids cut across the middle, skipping most of a lap, and rejoin the runners further ahead. "No one's counting properly," they say. "Just cut across — we'll all finish together and get the same sticker." You could cut across too and save yourself the hard part. Nobody's checking closely. You'd get the same finish-line sticker as everyone who ran the whole thing. Or you could run the full three laps, finish later and more tired, with a sticker that actually means you did it. The shortcut is right there. So is the difference between earning the finish and faking it.