Greed

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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The greedy one gathered all the cherries,

while the simple one tasted

all the cherries in one. – Mark Nepo

To people who gather all the cherries. To people who are never satisfied. To people who live under the weight of more. To people who measure themselves by looking at others. To people who consume more than they create. To people who see themselves as not enough.

I have a few thoughts that I remind myself when I spiral into the abyss of greed.

Be gentle with yourself and others.

Greed is not gentle. Greed demands. Greed yells and screams. Greed throws a tantrum. Greed breaks things. Greed regrets. When I am gentle with myself and others I find it much harder to feed the greed beast. When I am gentle with myself it is impossible to step on now looking for more. When I am gentle with myself and others, and being gentle is coupled with honesty, my boundaries coexist with inner and outer peace.

Life is fleeting.

I have lost count of the number of friends and loved ones of all ages who I have lost to all sort of illnesses. Each passing gives me pause to think about how I live my life. Stepping back, I know greed is such a waste of time. Greed is the antithesis of abundance and generosity. Greed stifles kindness. Greed kills relationships. On balance, that is too great a cost.

Consider consumption.

Consumption is easy. In many ways our culture is designed to teach us to consume. We hurry. We schedule. We organize. We buy storage units to hide stuff from our view when we get too much stuff. We honk our collective horns we things get in our way. We “hack” to the point where our souls are sliced and carved into fine pieces. Our need to consume feeds our greed. Always needing more is a life lesson we learn when we are young. One person’s consumption can be another’s aspiration. Does greed dance with ambition? I am not sure. What I am sure of is consumption, and its driving force greed, does not lead to joy.

Do something.

It is impossible to be greedy when when are using our strengths and talents to serve our world. In serving others we are acknowledging our interconnectedness. In serving others we are creating not consuming. In serving others we are not turned inward building bigger walls, accumulating more stuff, and asking “What’s next?” robbing ourselves of amazement. When we do something we are not doing nothing. That might seem pretty obvious, but many people see something, want to do something, and don’t. I propose greed might be part of the do nothing equation. I choose to do something.

https://kitt.global/february-8-greed-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/