Greed

Featured Illustration: To Ni, ‘The Price of Greed’

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Let me tell you a story

Of strong voracity and straight-up hypocrisy

Let me tell you a story

Where it’s people with their things versus people with nothing

Let me tell you a story

Of a society filled with greed that doesn’t feed those in grave need

Let me tell you a story of a world, this world, that we live in right now

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘greed’ as “the intense selfish desire for something”, something that we apparently need

Socrates once said, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have”

Yet, with these deafening words in mind why do we allow ourselves to live in lavish oblivion forgetting our decency for mankind

In this Western society

We desire the drinks, the drugs, the dollars

We fathom for the Ferraris, the fame, a fortune to keep us sustained

Yet, we remain ungrateful constantly craving for more

Like a well that never becomes full

Like a heart yearning for more blood

Or an ocean wishing to further flood the souls of people with greed

Now let’s step back and spin this globe

Observe the girl crying over the loss of her mother

Or listen to the boy shouting for his father

Turn your head down your very street and look at the family begging on their knees

Listen to the screams of bombs falling over towns making them tombs

Before you blast the sound of your music worshipping money and bodies for what use?

For what use do we live these fake lives

Snapping every second

Instagramming every instant

Showing the world every item we attain because we are so vain

While people live in a daily calamity screaming for humanity

We shut our eyes and ears without any care

Now don’t listen to my words and throw away your possessions

For that will do nothing and give off no great message

Rather be grateful for all that you have because at any moment that can be passed

Don’t complain about the food when you have a fridge full  

Don’t cry for new clothes when you got a closet complete

And don’t nag for new things when you practically got it all

Because like Gandhi said, “There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s needs but not man’s greed.”

Haleema Ahmed

Reader | Writer

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