Seven Deadly Sins- Greed

   

Greed is described as "intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food." In our society today we have been raised in an environment surrounded by marketing firms, advertising, and a culture defined by greed.  In my blog about envy I referenced people being hateful to others based on things they had.  This is a huge factor in people being greedy and braggart.  So let’s tackle each of the items pointed out in the definition above.

 

The first thing address is wealth.  That would be the obvious one of the three as most people thought of as greedy tend to be wealthy.  In a capitalist society how can greed be a bad thing?  I mean we want to become wealthy and have the ability to have nice things right?  The problem in this is twofold.  In having the ability to get anything we want we forget how special things can be.  We forget what it is like to work hard and have to save to achieve the goal of buying something you want.  But more than that it leads us down the path of the selfish desire referenced in the definition.  Look at the children of the super wealthy.  We see far too many of these children who never have to work for anything struggle with finding an identity and fall into other ways of finding joy like alcohol and drugs.  Many of these kids are assholes quite honestly.  They feel as though everyone should coddle them and give them what they want.  We see them yell at someone who refuses to do these things.  Recently in Lancaster we saw rioters arrested and given a one million dollar bond to be released.  The parents of one of these kids is threatening to sue the city for setting such a high bond.  This is a perfect example of the issue at hand.  This girl is a "Kappa Delta sorority sister and an “ally” of a black rights organization at the pricey private college she attends."  The college she attends charges around 60k/year to attend.  She comes from a wealthy family.  Her father stated he had spoken to his daughter but did not discuss what had happened on Sunday but did not think she was capable of doing anything wrong.  My problem here is the fact he spoke to his daughter and his first question wasn't "What in the hell did you do to get arrested!”  If my children ever called me from jail I would want to know everything that happened and what their part of it was.  She exemplifies the problems I stated above.  She obviously has no desire to be held accountable for her actions and her father is obviously ok bailing her out.  Wealth is a good thing but there is a fine line between wealthy and greedy.

 

The second thing stated in the description is power.  This one is a little more unseen than wealth but they actually go hand in hand a majority of the time, with wealth comes power.  The best example I can think of from modern news would be Epstein Island.  We saw numerous amounts of wealthy people traveling to his island to engage in sexual activities with minors as young as 14.  These events went on for years unknown to anyone outside of that group of wealthy and powerful people.  Once it all came out Epstein was arrested and sent to jail where he died of suicide while being monitored in a suicide cell.  None of the other rich and powerful people have been arrested as of my writing of this.  Many of these people were prominent politicians, actors, and high powered business people.  So why would they be able to avoid the punishment for what was done?  Quite simply, money and power.

 

Lastly they use food as an example.  The Covid-19 pandemic has really brought this to the forefront.  When people were being told to lockdown in their homes for 15 days the world went crazy.  Toilet paper of all things became so scarce people would stand in lines for hours just to fight over a 4 pack of generic tissue.  Then we saw our meat supply shrink due to shipping and other things and all of the sudden meat shelves were bare.  So while food is the example I think it applies to any other thing in our lives.  When you stockpile more items in your home then you could possibly ever use and prevent your neighbors from getting any I think you have become greedy and that is a prime example of another downfall in our society.  There once was a time you could go to your neighbors and borrow a cup of sugar or maybe some tissue but today we avoid our neighbors and horde things just so no one else will have something we do not.

 

As I said in the beginning we have been raised in a culture that teaches greed on every level.  If you see a guy in a new car you become envious when you should be applauding his success.  When a pandemic hits you horde items when you should be sharing them with people around you.  When you finally can afford all the things you could ever need or want you should be giving back to people less fortunate.  And finally I have known people who will give you $10 and you asked for $20 the problem is that may have been their last $10 and they gave you everything they had.  Greed causes so many people to break from friends, family and business partners every day.  If we do not begin to break out of this cycle and realize we take nothing with us when we die, a casket is only so big.  There is things much more important than wealth, power, or nice things.  Love one another and stop the hate.