A win you cheated for feels empty in a week. A loss you gave everything to feels proud for years.

Cheating gets you the object and skips the part that would have made it mean something. A week later the result is still on paper and the feeling has gone flat, because you know exactly how it was obtained and cannot un-know it. A real loss holds its value for years for the mirror-image reason, since you know precisely what you put in.

When the shortcut appears, ask which version you want to be carrying around in a month. Then take the slower one and let it be worth something.