Greed--A Paragraph a Day

We live in a world that has many greedy people in it, don't we?  We're surrounded by people who are willing to harm other people to get ahead themselves, who are willing to break laws and rules in order to attain things that they feel they should have.  Of course, not everyone is greedy (or we all are to a certain extent, but not greatly so), but there are enough greedy people around to have pushed our planet to a point at which we're facing disastrous climate change and unsustainable economic disparities such as the wealth gap that keeps the poor, poor and the rich, rich.  While I don't like to focus on negatives, greed is simply a reality of our world, and ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist doesn't do us a bit of good.  Rather, we must be aware of it and its effects on us, so that we can deal with it directly when we need to.  Greed is certainly understandable at some levels--we do need to support our families, right?  So breaking this particular law isn't that big of a deal if my return is enough money to pay for something for my kids.  And I don't want to give to a cause that's important because I may need that money next week, or next month.  When faced with greed, there's really only one path for me to take, and that's to make sure that I don't allow greed ever to control my words or actions, that I don't allow my fear of not having something turn me into someone whose greed is one of the defining features of my life, for I would hate to think of reaching the end of my life and look back and realize that greed was one of my major driving and motivating forces.  For those forces, I would much rather see things like, maybe, kindness and compassion.  Greed isn't something that I'll feel proud of.