Greed…
I’ve been on this earth for 23 years, and I’m sure of only one thing, most human beings are really greedy!
Most of you don’t know this but I’m not a Catholic man, I was raised in a Catholic school, I was baptized and did the first communion, but I’ve since distanced myself from church… I will talk about this in another post, this post is about greed!
Even though I’ve distanced myself from the Catholic church I still remember a large portion of the stuff I was taught, one of those things is that greed is a deadly sin! But what is greed?
Wikipedia says:
Greed, or avarice, is an inordinate or insatiable longing for unneeded excess, especially for excess wealth, status, power, or food.
Ok… so it’s a longing for an excess of wealth, status, power or food, but who makes “the rules” about how much is excess? Maybe we have different opinions on what excess is… maybe you are happy with 1000bucks a month, but what if I’m not! Maybe I’ll only be happy with 10.000 bucks a month, is it that bad to want more money? More power? What if I’m working for that money and power? Don’t I deserve it? Who says what excess is? Should I limit my potential just because someone says that Greed is a sin? That greed is wrong?! What if I’m greedy but I’m spending some of that money to make the world a better place?
Imagine this situation:
I work a 9-5 job all year long, I make my money, but I’m greedy so I want more, I start researching about investing and I start investing, I get extra passive income sources, the money keeps rolling in, but I still want more! So, I start buying houses with the money that is coming in and start renting them, but I still want more money! I start a blog and get some revenue from the blog, but I still want more! After years and years of working myself almost to death, of being greedy I retire and have more money than I can spare! Now, am I in the wrong here? I’m a greedy person in this example since I wanted more than I needed, but what did I do so wrong? I put all my time and effort into generating more power, more cash, more status, shouldn’t I be rewarded for it?
Since I was little I always listened to the same thing from my parents… “you need to be greedier!” and in my opinion I think greed is a great thing to have, it makes us want more, it makes us be better! Why should we stick to being average? If the Roman empire wasn’t greedy we wouldn’t have aqueducts, sewers, roads, philosophy, politics, etc…
Here is the thing, I’m not one of those persons that has a small dream, my dreams are big! Some of them are probably too big that I won’t be able to do them in my lifetime! Having some greed makes me closer to my dreams! I need that greed! It gives me motivation! … the problem arises when we are too greedy!
Trampling over other people! That’s where I set the line. Being so greedy that I don’t care if I trample over someone to achieve my dreams! That’s when greed starts to become a bad thing… It’s like anything in life! Too much of anything is bad! Again, with the Roman empire example, if they weren’t so greedy their whole empire wouldn’t have succumbed to its own pressure. That’s why I don’t understand this concept of greed being a deadly sin, excess greed yes, but greed, in general, isn’t!
Just found out while writing this that there might be a genetic basis for greed, a gene in the 12th chromosome called AVPR1a may make people more selfish!! Thinking about this from a scientific point of view greed would be an evolution mechanism, being greedy with the food we consume and with our mates would increase the probability of leaving progeny! This is still true even in our modern society!
Images are free source - 1, 2,3,4,5, 6, 7, 8,9
Question of the day: What is your opinion about being greedy? Are you a greedy person?
Get More and Higher Upvotes: Steemfollower
Convert your Bitcoin to EUR/USD : Coinbase
Buy all kinds of Cryptocurrency: Binance