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There are other forms of trust at play, too. Collecting some lupins from the side of the road or snipping a posy of wild flowers from a field is all very well 鈥� these are nature鈥檚 string-free offerings. But gardens involve someone else鈥檚 time, labour and care. It may seem dashing to snap off a handy carnation and place it in the buttonhole of a bespoke jacket, as Cary Grant or Clifton Webb or George Sanders might鈥檝e done, but this bespeaks more fantasy than propriety. (Notice how often those actors鈥� fashionable characters are cads as well as dandies.)

Anyway, you style your desire to snip your neighbours鈥� horticultural handiwork as a temptation. That answers your ethical question without delay: yes, this certainly is stealing; and no, you certainly shouldn鈥檛 do it. The lovingly nurtured beds and borders are already a positive externality 鈥� you enjoy them without cost as you stroll through the neighbourhood. Take that happy gift and walk on.

Or here鈥檚 a thought: direct your steps up to the neighbour鈥檚 door and knock. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! After all, the right moment for day-seizing is always now, as the Cavalier poet Robert Herrick reminds us. 鈥淕ather ye rose-buds while ye may,鈥� the lifelong bachelor wrote in 1648, in a poem ostensibly addressed to virgins. 鈥淥ld Time is still a-flying; / And this same flower that smiles today / Tomorrow will be dying.鈥� So carpe diem, virgin or not. Just ask the gardener first.

It鈥檚 hard to get a job these days, especially for young people. I鈥檝e given out tons of resum茅s. I鈥檝e also spoken to friends who have embellished theirs 鈥� sometimes a little, sometimes by omission and sometimes a lot. It seems like common practice, but I feel uncomfortable about it. How much embellishment is acceptable?

The harms of credential fraud, which is what you鈥檙e contemplating, range from embarrassing to life-threatening. Nobody is going to care very much if you list your secretarial job as 鈥淓xecutive Assistant,鈥� say 鈥� though that鈥檚 still all kinds of bogus. But if you fake or fudge a medical degree or a board certification, as a recent nominee for United States surgeon general did, you could put lives at risk. Falsified qualifications are a form of what military veterans call 鈥渟tolen valour.鈥� They insult the virtuous even as they elevate the vicious.

Still, the temptation to bio-lie is strong 鈥� and growing. The global market for falsified degrees and diplomas was estimated at some $21 billion last year, and that鈥檚 just for recorded transactions. Ad hoc embellishments and untraceable, AI-driven CV boosts are likely far more widespread. These booming deception stakes might benefit individuals, but they hollow out already waning trust in institutions of accredited expertise, including science, medicine and law.

鈥淏ut wait,鈥� you might say, 鈥淚鈥檓 just adding a line about the French I don鈥檛 really speak and the Excel skills I don鈥檛 have. Who cares?鈥� Sure, no big deal 鈥� only now the cover-up is worse than the crime. If you鈥檙e caught out, you could face demotion, termination or worse. Consider former U.S. congressman George Santos, the serial fabulist of athletic feats, educational accomplishments and cultural bona fides, who eventually landed in jail. In Canada, false claims of Indigenous identity have come back to haunt many prominent writers, jurists and academics in so-called Pretendian scandals. Those are the kinds of blots you can never remove from your bio.

But set all negative consequences to one side. As Immanuel Kant reminds us, the duty not to lie resides in its simply being wrong, as in contrary to reason. Tout your real achievements on that resum茅, keep on sending it out in good faith and leave the lying to the crooks and the grifters. That way, when you do land a job, you鈥檒l enjoy the double reward of knowing that what you have was earned honestly.