Greed and Selfishness ... Knowing the difference and loving yourself!Written by Edward B. Toupin
I hear many people discuss how selfishness leads to greed, or that being greedy is part of being selfish. I simply have to say that "greed" and "selfishness" are not same things. These are "value words" and are based on ideas and information drilled into our heads when we were younger as something known as "basic morals."As you grow and change, you find that these value words don't seem to fit any longer and, instead of providing a basis from which we can learn, they begin to hinder progress. If you learned that being selfish meant not doing for others and that selfishness was bad, then all your life you will be taken advantage of and used by those that have come to realize that it is okay to be selfish with oneself. However, this basic idea of selfishness preempts definition of love. What this means is that, if we're selfish of ourselves, we can never love. This too is untrue! If we are selfish with ourselves, we seek that which is right and true for ourselves. In this search, we can find that person that is right for us and we love them because they provide feelings that we seek for satisfaction.
| | Breaking Even ... When is enough, enough?Written by Edward B. Toupin
I had most interesting discussion today with a friend of mine. He and I were chatting about economy, his job, families, and life in general. The one point that he kept raising was that of his "needing to do more" to pay bills, be with his family, get promoted at work, fix hot water heater, etc. It's always "need to do more" to better accommodate more.I had to stop and think for a minute --- more for more? That doesn't make sense! If you have to do more, to handle more, yet there is no more time and energy and your quality of life decreases with each "more" you acquire --- that means that somewhere in prior "mores" was a break-even point. There must have been some point in there were "more" was enough and everything was great --- yet we missed peak because we were busily looking at something "more". --- Is less more? --- I always wondered what that meant --- "less is more". Actually, you have to have something to begin with to have less and know what this means. I remember during fires in Colorado --- we went from living in a gorgeous, huge house, on a mountain, to living in a pickup truck and hotel room for two weeks. We had much less --- but at that time we had everything we needed: my wife, myself, and two dogs. We were safe and realized that nothing else mattered --- our peak? Perhaps. But, life went on and we rebuilt our lives around necessities instead of "more". We now have everything we need, and a few things we want, but we looked for that break even point and are now happier than ever before. --- Where is my break even? --- This point is different for everyone, but break even point, I've found, is when you have everything that satisfies your core needs in life and you have opportunity to take time and enjoy them all. Everything beyond that point begins to put stress on your life, love, and career and quality of life begins to decrease because of amount of energy and time involved in maintaining "more".
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