Greed Is a Finances Destroyer

As I age and mature, I gradually alter my behavior as I strive to be more successful. In recent years, I noticed that I have gotten rid of many of my bad habits or limiting behaviors. However, in the course of becoming more capable, I become more greedy as well. I also notice the same greed in other people around me and truly believe that greed can destroy us financially.

Few years ago, I put my money into an investment scam predominantly because of greed. I advised other people publicly not to put their money in, but I went against my own better judgement simply because I thought ‘what if’. When trading or holding stocks, greed also accounted for a major loss of return. There are so many instances when I went against my rational judgement because of greed.

Besides all these obvious effects of loss due to greed, there is a derivative of greed. Greed leads to a loss of productivity. The more capable a person is, the more prone he may be to this syndrome. When a person feels that he is not paid enough, he may reduce his working output. This behavior is very negative and potentially destroys our finances indirectly because it will affect our professional growth and future income.

I believe it is very important to be disciplined in making significant contributions at our workplace, regardless of whether there are monetary rewards. Some companies may take longer to react, so if we do not contribute, we will never know if our companies do react. Additionally, the satisfaction of making a difference is already a pretty cool reward by itself. For me, that’s pretty much what I work for, I derive a lot of pleasure when knowing that people are still using what I came up with a few years ago.

My final point is that greed is a natural part of us and there is nothing wrong with it. We all want more of something good all the time, but the important factor is discipline. May our discipline triumph over greed to our long-run financial advantage.