LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
“The world says: “You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much rights as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy, and murder.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov
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In The Complete Essays, author Michel de Montaigne wrote: “I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything but catch nothing except wind.”
His statement came to mind when I read this anecdote:
A big dog had stolen a big piece of meat from the butcher and was running home with it as fast as he could. It so happened that he passed by a stream with a plank across it. He stopped and looked down into the water and saw a very strange thing. Down there was another dog, with another piece of meat.
“What’s this: a dog with a piece of meat even bigger than mine down there,” the dog said to himself. “I’ll take it away from him.”
So, he opened his mouth to grab the other dog’s piece of meat and plop! – the piece of meat in his own mouth fell right down into the bottom of the stream. The dog kept looking down into the water and now he saw the dog down there had no meat either.
So, both had lost their meal – both he and his reflection in the water.
One of the seven deadly sins
Greed, also known as avarice, is defined as “an insatiable desire for material gain – be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions – or social value, such as status, or power.”
More often than not, people who are greedy are those who already have something in life – and no surprises there, they want more. They covet and deeply want what others already have. They believe in this statement: “What is mine is mine. What is yours is mine, too.”
G.K. Chesterton, in A Miscellany of Men, expounds it this way: “Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
Epicurus reminded, “Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little.”
This made Jon Foreman to issue this statement: “Greed, envy, sloth, pride and gluttony: these are not vices anymore. No, these are marketing tools. Lust is our way of life. Envy is just a nudge towards another sale. Even in our relationships we consume each other, each of us looking for what we can get out of the other. Our appetites are often satisfied at the expense of those around us. In a dog-eat-dog world, we lose part of our humanity.”
Envy and Greed
Now, there were two men – one was envious and the other greedy – who were stranded in the sea – after their boat capsized. They happened to see a floating lamp in the water. One took it and the other tried to rub it. True enough, it was the magic lamp. The genie came out and told them they could have only one wish.
But there was a hitch: Whoever made a wish first would have his wish fulfilled. But the other man would get a double portion of what the first had asked for.
Each waited and waited for the other fellow to wish first. Finally, the greedy man took the envious man by the throat and threatened to choke him to death unless he made his wish. So, the envious man said, “All right. I wish to be blind in one eye.”
At once he lost sight of one eye, while his companion lost both.
Insatiable
In Wolves of the Calla, bestselling author Stephen King wrote: “It didn´t occur to me until later that there´s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.”
Greed is here to stay. As Richelle E. Goodrich pointed out in Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year, “There are people who are never content, never appeased, forever dissatisfied – who continually look to what escapes them, convincing themselves that if only they could attain that one desire outside of reach, they would be happy. It seems almost pointless to give to these people because their eyes immediately shift from the gift to stare miserably at the portion held back. Their wants, demands, expectations, appetites are never satiated, thus they refuse to be happy. And you cannot make them so.”
This brings us to this anecdote: A princess went to a neighboring chief whose corn fields were the talk of all tribes. She asked if she might select one ear for seed. He granted her permission to walk down the longest row and take the finest ear she could find.
He made only one condition. She must choose as she walks down the row; she could not turn back and pluck an ear she had once passed by.
The princess, of course, kept looking for the perfect ear – until she walked right out of the corn field empty-handed.
To end this piece allow me to share this conversation written by Fisher Amelie in Greed.
“I can’t do that,” he said, exhaling sharply and staring out the glass into the street.
“Why not?”
His face softened. “I need his money.”
Spencer looked at me and I couldn’t help but stare back. We were all in the same boat, prisoners to greed.” – ###
