WGP 036: Greed – How Intense Desire Creates Suffering

In this podcast I’ll be exploring Greed:

  • I’ll explain how greed can be a good thing
  • I’ll talk about where this wanting and grasping and craving for more comes from
  • I’ll explain the link between greed and unhealthy attachments
  • I’ll talk about how greed creates dissatisfaction through expectation
  • Finally, I’ll share a few strategies on how to manage yourself when it comes to greed and your desires


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Greed is defined as an intense or excessive desire for more.

Looking at greed from an evolutionary lens, our ancestors lived in times of both abundance and scarcity and greed comes in very handy in those scarce moments. When traditional cultures did not have enough food put aside for the winter or had their villages wiped out by natural disasters or disease these are times when you need to have a very intense desire to survive as your life depends on it.

Coming back to today to modern times where if you’re fortunate enough to be listening to this podcast I have to say, you are pretty set when it comes to getting your basic needs met. We live in a world that’s very abundant in many respects with more than enough food being produced to feed the planet, but food wastage means people still starve. We live in a world with more than enough clothes to cover every single man, woman, and child a thousand times over, but still people die due to extreme weather conditions and thermal stress. We live in a world with so much advanced technology that this could shift the human race into a new age of peace and love, but old wars still rage on with weapons of mass and mini destruction being the technology of choice.

So the problem isn’t really greed itself, but the greed mindset in abundant conditions.

Now if the world we live in today has more than enough for us to survive why the excessive intense desire, the need, the want, the grasping, the craving for more? One reason is you have been programmed by news media, marketing, food companies, drug companies, sports, fashion, military, and every other industrial complex out there to desire more. Every day you see advertisements telling you that you’re not good enough or that you haven’t made it in life until you buy x, eat y, wear z, and smell like p, the letter that is.

Another reason for excessive wanting and desires is your upbringing. Your parents and family would have installed into your under seven year-old subconscious mind as you were growing up that no matter what you do, you must do more; no matter what you have, you must have more; and no matter how you’re being you must be more! Now they didn’t do this on purpose because hey their parents did the exact same thing to them.

So this is where greed in an abundant world comes from – external sources.  This is why despite having more today than anyone 10,000 years ago ever had, you have this insatiable appetite to want more to crave what it is you don’t have yet grasp at because you feel like you’re missing out on something. This greed mindset comes from outside of you.

Having an intense desire for more can lead you down a path to unhealthy attachments. Attachment itself isn’t a bad thing. A loving bond is absolutely necessary between family members, friends, and communities to keep everyone moving forward in the direction that lifts everybody up. Unhealthy attachments, however, are not bonds of love, but bonds of fear.

When you lust after and want great ideas, people, places, and things you can begin to confuse yourself with that which you desire. For example you could be greedy for money and say to yourself that unless you earn a certain amount or have a certain amount of cash in the bank you are not successful. So you grow this unhealthy attachment with an idea of success equalling having lots of money and therefore you think that without money you are nothing. Another example maybe you want to be with a particular person say a celebrity and you daydream about them and begin stalking them on Facebook and Instagram. Then one day you wake up and realise you know more about that person than you actually know yourself and you’re practically living life through them instead of in your own body and space.

This unhealthy form of attachment comes from a place of fear where we as living creatures grasp security every chance we can get. So whenever you feel insecure within your own skin or unsure about your own thoughts and feelings you may find yourself not wanting to go inside to face this doubt and instead may look externally for that safety and security. You will seek out ideas that make you feel good, people that make you feel safe, places and things that make you feel secure and you will attach yourself so strongly to them that your entire existence depends on them more than anything else.

This craving for security can lead to attachments that cause you to live outside more than inside of yourself creating disharmony in your bodymind leaving you with an unhealthy and unhappy life.

Greed, wanting and grasping and craving, leads to many expectations. Expectations of how your life should be, of how you should be, and of how other people should be. Notice a lot of shouldas there. Living a shoulda life is a surefire recipe for a dissatisfied life. How?

If you really think about it the only times where you’ve felt upset or letdown were when expectations you had about a situation or person were not met. Every single time you expect your well prepared plan A to happen, but instead plan B happens out of nowhere you get frustrated and then when plan B seems to show up more frequently than your precious plan A your frustration turns to anger and possibly rage or maybe even tears. Whenever you experience an outcome that is not what you wanted or were hoping for of course you’re going to be dissatisfied.

“Unfulfilled expectations are the prerequisite to suffering.”

Does this mean that to live a life without suffering you must live a life without expectations and greed? No and I’ll share a few tips now on how to manage yourself when it comes to greed, to wanting, to unhealthy attachments, and expectations.

Most important tip to managing yourself and your intense desires is to switch off from media, marketing, advertising, and any other bad influence that brainwash you into thinking you live in a world of scarcity and that you’re not good enough so you must buy what they’re selling before you’ll ever succeed in life. All of this stuff creates FOMO in your mind where you begin to Fear On Missing Out on what other people are doing because of the so-called importance that is placed upon them through hype and propaganda. By moving away from this hype you will lessen your FOMO and your need for greed.

Bonus tip: switch off the news as well and not only will you shield yourself from the advertising hype, but you’ll also decrease your stress levels from the negative news improving your overall health.

Another way to not lose yourself to wants and desires and lose yourself to unhealthy attachments is to practice mindfulness, awareness, and being present in the moment. ‘Be in the now man’ is hippy talk for wake up to what’s happening in you and around you right now in this moment. Many people live in the past reliving their regrets or in the future worrying about possible failures. This way of thinking creates doubt of your own worthiness and personal abilities to live a successful and happy life so you begin to look to find your worth in another person or in other material objects. You look outside instead of inside.

By being here and now you learn what it is you need in this moment and stop thinking about what you needed years ago when you fumbled that catch at school or what you need in 2 weeks to pay the rent. When you can bring yourself to what’s happening right here, right now you will find your desires grow less intense and see that what you really need could be as simple as a glass of water, a deep breath, a talk, a walk, or even a hug.

A couple ways to practise mindfulness is meditation of any type and body scanning. I’ve talked about meditation many many times before so I’ll talk a little bit about body scanning. Body scanning is not getting a CT scan or x-ray at the hospital or doctor’s office, but a mindfulness practise where you start from of your head or your feet and work your way down or up your body focusing on each body part as you go through the practise. You notice aches, temperature, and other sensations in one area of your body before moving to the next. This is a great way to centre or ground yourself to how you, your body, your mind, everything about you is experiencing life in that moment. I’ll put a link to a YouTube video in the blog post for this episode showing how to perform this body scan practise.

When it comes to letting go of expectations, um, actually don’t. Zig Ziglar a personal development coach and speaker has a quote that goes:

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

Meaning you shouldn’t remove expectations, but be flexible when things don’t go your way. Instead of stewing in misery think to yourself, what’s the lesson here and what new expectations can I create from this experience? Another way to say it would be to expect to fall in life and then expect that you will get back up.

Such is the story of all life no? A constant cycle of ups and downs, life and death, new and old. If you can see the world as an impermanent place where nothing is fixed, set, or stagnant, but more like water that’s always in flow and if you can see that the future is impossible to see and predict then you may just be able to let go of suffering by moving with the flow of the world when your expectations are not met and you may just learn something about yourself along the way.

Another quote this time by superstar martial artist Bruce Lee:

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

Do not take on other people’s baggage. You got enough personal baggage to last many life times as it is.

I’ll leave you with this thought.

Imagine putting your hand in a river to get some water and you grasp tightly. You end up making a fist which comes up empty handed. Now if you were to release your grip and open your hand more you’d be able to carry a lot more water. Grasping on to desires too tightly stops you from getting what you want. Be mindful, open yourself up to letting go of attachments, be flexible with your expectations, and use greed to inspire and move you toward your dreams – suffering being optional.

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