7 Deadly Sins...Greed

I think greed is something we possess when we come out of the womb.  We want what we want...if we're hungry, we want to be fed; if we're tired we want to be lulled to sleep; if we're sitting in a dirty diaper, we cry until our bottom is clean.  A 3 month old doesn't sit with a growling tummy and think to itself, "Oh, mom's doing laundry because I vomited all over myself and her earlier, so I'll just sit here and amuse myself until she has time to tend to me."  It never works that way.  It's part of a heirarchy of personality phases that we go through and the first one is called the id.  It's the stage in life where everything is about you and you want everything for yourself.  Sure, you're basic needs are met but it's at the expense of everyone around you.  Sadly, some people never grow out of this phase.  Greed in many ways is like the id phase of our personality development.

I look at toddlers, only children and brats who haven't learned how to share.  It's perfectly normal to be possessive of your possessions but it's up to parents to teach the children when to let things go and not be a toy hog.  When I see a greedy adult it often makes me wonder what kind of upbringing they had.  Were they wealthy, used to getting everything they wanted, never had to share and just brought these traits straight into adulthood?  Were they poor, had to fight for everything they had, defending their no-name "Barbey" from a sibling that just wanted to rip her head off and carried this form of survival into grown-up land?  It could be a plethera of things but one thing is for certain, greed is not a flattering characteristic even if Michael Douglas said it was in Wall Street.

I'm definately guilty of greed.  Especially when it comes to beer, DVD's and well, really anything.  There's a reason I buy my stuff and it's so it will be there when I need it.  I don't want to have to go looking for my possessions only to realize I've loaned them to a someone who has not returned it.  Ugh, that makes me crazy.  And why do I feel guilty asking for it back?  It's my stuff.  I paid for it.  I took the time out of my schedule to go buy it but for the life of me, I hate to ask for it back because I feel like I'm being a greedy ass.  It's quite a conundrum.  I'm trying to work through it, though but it's not looking good.

As for putting a positive spin on greed, well, that's a hard one.  This may be the one deadly sin that I can't see a bright side in because there's nothing appealing about it.  So to greed I say, well played.  You have greedily kept anything good about you to yourself and not shared the tiniest sliver of hope that there's a ray of sunshine in you.