@bnt on Money #4: Greed Is Moronic
Hello there! This is my 4th essay on money and I hope my fellow steemians will enjoy it! All feedback is welcomed, appreciated and WILL be upvoted!
Gordon Gecko professed his approval and even fondness of greed through is short and memorable quote "greed is good" in the legendary film Wall Street. In the (horrible) recent sequel to the original masterpiece, Gecko comes out of prison and, as he's giving a lecture, he makes a new version of his statement: "I once said greed is good, but now it seems it’s legal." as the crowd burst into applause.
And if learning your personal values from a fictional character is not a good idea, I don't know what is! I'm being a smart ass, of course, but it would seem like this is how people get a lot of their ideas about morality and what being an upstanding citizen means. I consider greed to be an expression of character.
If there's things that you will do in order to get your way more than you need to, that's greed. However, please do note that I'm not labeling greed in on itself as a good trait or as a bad trait. Generally speaking, greed does have some implications for the person that portraits it, though.
I also think that greed is dumb.
Not all greed is the same, but they all look alike. There are some traits that greed has that make people confuse it with ambition as well. Don't fall for that, they are vastly different in the ways that actually matter. Even so, ambition (in my opinion) is the smart version of greed. I think it's smart to be ambitious and not greedy because ambition allows for moral, ethical and legal behavior, whereas greed has a tendency to carry the opposite traits of behavior along with it.
Another reason why I think being greedy is not smart is because it's a dead end. Greed is a bottomless pit that will leave you stranded looking for something that was never there. Being greedy can generally serve as a means for you to fill a hole that needs filling in your life. But souls rarely have car-shaped holes in them. Greed is the fulfillment of an empty promise that you make to yourself. The obtainment of a mirage of accomplishment. Spiritual hunger.
Greed kills patience.
As a rule of thumb, greed never comes alone and it never appears suddenly into life. I think greed is symptomatic, the sign that something else was going on before and left greed behind as a residue, like a stain in a person's character. Curiously enough, greed almost always starts on the opposite of the spectrum, with a lack.
And even if I strongly believe that there's no honor in poverty, I also think you should not be shackled to any one thing in your life, up to and including money. You should be the boss of money, always and at all times. Greed is one example of money being the boss of you. Being a greedy person often times means you do things without purpose. Purpose of action doesn't permit greed to be present. Purpose gives clarity and greed is blinding.
There's yet another thing that I don't like about greed and that's the fact that it makes people act based on emotion. Since there's often little separation between being greedy and screwing other people over, you become so enticed with the idea of getting more of whatever it is you're trying to get that you forget, relationships are severed and respect is lost. Other people becoming and being successful should not represent a personal tragedy. It should represent an opportunity to cheer on the other party and commend them on accomplishing what you probably want to accomplish yourself in the future.
Unfortunately, greed doesn't allow for one of the most important requisites of wealth: blessing what you want to get. Greedy people are often also envious, which is ironic since both greed and envy will get in their way instead of helping them reach their objectives. By definition envy is the faint damning of other people's
"Why do you have that and I don't?"
Asks himself the greedy person. If you think that you're the one who should actually have or be whatever the person you're envious of has or is, just go get it. Don't mop around wishing it were different. It isn't. Deal with it.
I think that not being greedy could seem almost counter-intuitive to the average person. Since most people try to reach their goals and go about their lives with a scarcity mindset, being greedy and envious seems almost natural. Instead of choosing a healthy, realistic vision of success, one that's based on ambition and personal improvement, they choose the (often ineffective) shortcut of greed. On the contrary, greed often actually inhibits your personal development.
You hitting your stride and becoming more and more successful -financially or otherwise- should be something that all people benefit from. No, I'm not telling you that you should give all of your money away as soon as you receive it. What I am telling you is that, since success like the one I talk about signifies the championship of your internal values and your growth, other people will come to get a better attitude or a more powerful connection to you.
Don't allow greed to overpower your common sense.
You've probably heard about lotto winners who lose it all after just a few years, correct? Well, I think that these loses are based primarily and almost entirely on greed. Do you think these people go back to their previous levels of socioeconomic status, or in some cases even lower than before, because they were too generous? Of course not! They got greedy and that was the fall of almost all of them.
Greed made them think that they had so much money they could spend viciously without consequence and that they were going to be fine. No spiritual or personal growth, just the same old master (money) tasking the same old slave (them). Don't let it get to that level, I beg you. There is no getting back from that.
TL;DR:
- Greed is counter-productive.
- You need to avoid being greedy and start being ambitious, which are two different things.
- Long-term wealth is built on ambition, not greed.
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