Enemies of Happiness – Greed

Yet another enemy of happiness may have entered in the mind of some of us. This is greed. It keeps on growing unabated when not controlled. The end result invariably is a disaster. It can be greed for money, it can be greed for power or fame, respect, sex or even attention. Greed for food is also not uncommon. Greed has a tendency to grow faster when you achieve more. Unfortunately greedy people lose the perspective. If the human wanted more for happiness, it may be considered normal. But greed invariably makes you unhappy. In this case the desire is never controlled.

 

In fact one can be rich without being greedy. Making more money should not be the objective. Enjoying what you have and of course aspiring for more can be a legitimate goal of successful people in a competitive world. But greed does not allow you to enjoy what you have. It only reinforces your anguish on what you don’t have.

 

The great English Victorian explorer – Sir Richard Frances Britten once said: ‘conquer thyself till thou have has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjective to another’s appetite as to thine own. ‘

 

Shakespeare the great dramatist discussed these characteristics of human mind in great detail when he created the character of his play Macbeth by the same name. Hunger for more power keeps on increasing until Macbeth is pushed to the wall of disaster.

 

Thanks for reading.

Commonsense.

 

Indeed, there is so much of information fed to us from all directions everyday that basic common sense is often overlooked. The biggest problem that arises out of our care for minute details and not using our commonsense is that the big picture is lost. We become so much engrossed in the finer points that our perspective itself gets disturbed. There is no doubt that the goals can be achieved only by remaining focused and taking all the actions which as per our plan are required. But keeping commonsense active is necessary. And when we don’t do it, the danger is that working out the plans in greater details than necessary, we may lose our path. Following picture even talks about our destiny depends on our ability to use commonsense all the time.

 

If we are too anxious to achieve something which is not practical, sometime, it may result in to a disaster. Bhagwad Gita has time and again emphasized the importance of detachment. We must not be emotionally attached to any person or any object as this leads to a constant fear of losing the same. Likewise, when we are extremely anxious of achieving our objective, the anxiety also misleads us.

 

Common sense according to a British Philosopher ‘is the best sense’. Oscar Wilde went a step further when he said, “now a day’s most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.”

Further, it’s very interesting to note the following observation:

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character’s attributes of New Yorkers, common sense clocked as low as number 79. They say more intelligent than anybody is ‘everybody’. The perception of everybody represents the commonsense that one should never ignore. In fact, nothing astonishes men/women as much as common sense and plain dealing. If an idea is worth having once it’s worth having twice too.

 

Whatever one may do one should always keep common sense in the forefront and always in view.

Thanks for reading.