When Greed Is Good - The Irony Of Personal Development - Kevin Bulmer

They say there are seven deadly sins. There’s jealousy, sloth, pride, forgetting to call on Mother’s Day … stuff like that.

And then there’s greed. Boy, that’s really a bad one, huh?

That depends.

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“Don’t get greedy. It’s better to give than to get!”

Normally, I would say that’s a pretty solid operating system. It’s also why I think it’s ironic that when I got truly serious about making the most of myself, so that I could – among other things – give more and contribute more, it didn’t take long for me to realize I was going to have to be a lot more greedy in certain areas of my life.

I wanted to cultivate positive thought and a mindset that was going to be empowering to help me to see and really believe and understand that the world is a good place and it’s filled with really good people. It became immediately apparent that I was going to have to be a lot more greedy, a lot more diligent about what I allowed myself to watch and listen to and read and in many – and maybe even most – cases, that wasn’t the kind of stuff that’s immediately available, everywhere I go.

Or when I really became more deeply committed to being more resourceful and productive in my work, so that I could give more, so that I could contribute more and be even more effective. Well, it seemed obvious right off the bat that I was going to have to be very greedy and guard my time and my attention a lot more closely. I was going to have to keep myself away from the water cooler and from those huddles around desks where there are whispers, gossip and rumors; the kinds of things that were filling me with emotional poison.

Or what about just a level of health in general and taking responsibility of the food choices that I make? What drinks I drink and what I put into my body and how that affects my ability to be the best version of myself, so that I can give more back to the world and to the people that I care about most?

Well, as soon as I tuned into that, I became a lot more aware of what choices were always immediately available to me. What I found was I was going to need to get a lot greedier, in terms of what I allowed to have my attention, and even what aisle I went to in certain stores, to make sure that I was intentional about going not with what was convenient, but what was best for serving the best version of myself. I quickly learned that I was going to have to get absolutely relentless (and, yeah, maybe you could use the word greedy) about becoming a happy and healthy and a person that could ultimately give and contribute a lot more.

They say that greed is one of the seven deadly sins. In a lot of cases, I can see that that’s case. Ironically, I see that I have to be greedy to keep myself sheltered from that exact kind of greed I think they’re talking about.