The cause of unhappiness in life is greed
The most obvious stand is to write against greed. Greed is a recognized vice and it is born of an excess desire for something. It may be of power, wealth, ambition, name, fame, and what not. It brings in its wake tension and unhappiness. But apart from these there are one or two kinds of desires which cannot be summarily rejected as bad. It is what we might term as an excess of desire to be nobly great. We shall discuss this exception to the rule at the end.
The basis of greed is desire but all desires are not greed. To be desire less is to be dull and inactive. Only when our desires are based on base selfish motives, we call it greed. Then we are not satisfied with the fulfilment of our needs. But want to have much more than our needs. We develop a desire to grab and the more we grab the more we become selfish and pound. This passion or excessive desire to have more is greed. A man then becomes shameless and pitiless. He spares none to achieve his end. We can cite some celebrities in whom this greed reached its worst form.
History presents the worst example of greed of power in Hitler. He wished to be the supreme ruler of the world through the foulest method. A similar example of greed of wealth today is Harshad Mehta, of ambition and power Saddam Hussain.
There is a famous proverb, greed begets sin and sin is the cause of death. The above examples bear out the truth of the proverb. Even in normal life greed cause unhappiness, because this fell desire is a suicidal passion. It never rests until its target is achieved. It sets the mind on to invent foul methods. The greed of wealth tempts him to cheat others and to steal. The greed of power tempts him to show his might on the weak and the innocent. It is a proven truth that the greedy fulfil their desires by exploiting the weak, the poor and innocent. He is always afraid of the strong and the alert person. For the latter may resist.
Unwary lays the head that wears a crown. Too much op power or wealth steals away peace of mind. The man is always afraid of robbers and rivals of power. The opposite of greed is contentment. The latter is a spiritual asset for any man. The man remains at rest with himself. But greed multiplies like wild fire. The greedy man cannot afford to rein his desires. Naturally he always remains at the mercy of his dangerous desires. He remains mentally restless and, like a boulder down a hill, goes down committing sin after sin. What can be a more unhappy state that this?
It is now conclusively proved that merely an excess of desire is not greed. A man can suffer from an excess of noble desire. Milton suffered from an ardent desire to write a great epic. Similarly great leaders nurse vehement desires to rise in life. But they do not fall into the category of greed, because these are nourished by healthy and noble intentions. These give strength to the spiritual man, whereas greed generally flatters his material ambition. Therefore have I called greed a full-passion?
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.