Greed can lead to envy. It can produce such strong feelings that
reason and logical thinking can be thrown out the window. We become so consumed with the power of greed
that nothing else matters. We will say
or do whatever we feel is necessary to obtain the things that have become the focus
of our greed. It creates
behavior-conflict between personal and social goals.
According to Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ethics-everyone/201012/the-grip-greed
) “Greed has unpleasant
effects on our inner emotional lives. The anxiety and restlessness we feel when we
long for some possession, and the false assurance that upon gaining it we'll be
put at ease and satisfied places us in a literally vicious circle.”
We can become consumed with greed to the
point that we may not only destroy our lives, but the lives of others:
our family, workmates, or friends. We
may be destroyed by the very thing that has become our hearts desire. The thing that we cannot possess or obtain
properly, so we resort to underhanded, devious actions. Perhaps even reaching the point of murder
itself!
Below I have listed some examples of greed
as highlighted in an article by Your Dictionary (https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-greed.html
):
- Dishonest
banks who give people mortgages that the banks know they cannot afford
just so the bank can make money and foreclosure on
the house.
- Dishonest credit card companies
that set up a system of changing payment dates without making it obvious
to customers to encourage defaults so that very high interest rates can be
charged.
- Dishonest companies that take
government bailouts and then give multi-million-dollar bonuses to
executives that ran the company into the ground.
- Dishonest people like Bernie
Madoff who set up pyramid schemes to steal money from investors.
- Dishonest
banks that set up a scheme to cash larger checks first so that people
bounce many smaller checks and are subject to large per check penalty fees
as a result.
Here are some more examples
that don’t necessarily include money from the same article:
- A person who takes all
of the cookies in the house for himself, not sharing even though he knows
others will want some.
- A person at work who
takes credit for the hard work of others and who takes a larger share of
the bonus money or prize for sales, even if he didn't actually do anything
to earn it.
- An employee who takes
lavish vacations at the expense of his employer by claiming that the
vacations are business trips, even when they really aren't.
- A person who signs up
for government benefits like food stamps that he doesn't deserve and
didn't earn and who then sells the food stamps on eBay to get cash.
- A person who steals the
Christmas decorations that his neighbor put out because he wants them but
doesn't want to buy them for himself.
- A person who takes
computers and supplies home from work because he wants to have them for
himself, even though he isn't supposed to and his behavior means that
others cannot use the computer or supplies.
- A person who sees a
starving person and takes the bread right out of that person's hands to
eat for himself, even if he has enough money to buy his own food.
- A person who refuses to
pay his income taxes that he is required by law to pay because he wants to
keep more of the money, he earned for himself, despite the cost to society
as a whole.
The Bible itself has
much to say about greed and the greedy.
Just to consider a point or two:
Proverbs 20:21
states: “An inheritance obtained first by greed will not be a blessing in the
end.” Jesus also said at Mark 7:21,22
that ‘For from inside, out of the heart of men, come…” and he continues to list
an amazing amount of “wicked things” [including greed] that “come from within
and defile a man.”
It truly is a struggle
to fight the tendencies to not become greedy over any number of things both monetarily
or other material things. Our greatest obstacle is the fact that we’re only
human!
QUOTE TO CONSIDER
"Judge a man, not by what he has,
but by what he does with what he has!"
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