Being Greedy Leads Us To Make The Wrong Choices

There is enough of everything in the world to satisfy man’s needs, but not enough to satisfy his greed. Gandhi

According to the Robert dictionary, greed is defined as the ardent, immoderate desire for something, the vivacity with which it is satisfied.

The important word in this definition is in my opinion “something”, that is to say a tangible and concrete object.

Greed is the first of the 13 principles in Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich”.

In my opinion, greed is problematic in that it is alienating, i.e. it makes us miss ourselves. In my opinion, it is necessary to cultivate not a burning desire, but values that will find a tangible manifestation later on, such as freedom, courage, benevolence. If I manage to cultivate peace or freedom within myself, I will necessarily concretize it in the external world to avoid a cognitive dissonance between my actions and my thoughts. This rule works both ways, i.e. your actions (a fortiori your external world) influence your thoughts, it is nevertheless easier to control your thoughts than your environment unless you take radical solutions (move, change country etc). Controlling our actions as the embodiment of values can be just as effective in influencing our thoughts always using the principle of cognitive non-dissonance. Thus, if I get up every day at a regular time, I cultivate both the values of reliability and regularity in myself.

So we have to think in terms of emanation. To get what you want, you don’t have to look for it on the outside, but embody it on the inside and the rest will follow. It’s like trying to make friends. What do you think would be the best strategy to achieve this goal: is it looking for friends with a longing or becoming someone friendly? Chances are, it’s the latter. In order to manifest something externally, in this case friendship, you must already have it within you. When we put ourselves in a state of ardent search, we can simply drive away what we are looking for because it can be perceived as the mark of an absence, of an insufficiency. The same is true for all the purposes of existence. I am not here to hand down Napoleon Hill’s principles, they have served many people. I even think we can agree if he meant that the longing must come from a position of abundance and that it is in fact an emanation, the result of long inner work rather than a desperate search.

In itself, if you are looking for happiness, it is here: here and now. It is not in another world, another time. It is right in front of us, but we refuse to see it. Happiness is within us as long as what drives us is gratitude, peace, benevolence and humility. These are universal values to which everyone has access, we just have to make them grow like plants, the seeds are in each of us.