What's our drive?

I always thought that greed was the reason behind most of our progress. It helped us get ahead of our competition as a species. We strived for more, hunted more, planted more, built more, and reproduced more to get ahead.

Our desires are never-ending: we never seem to have enough, even when abundance surrounds us. The reason behind our pursuit of more cars, houses, awards, and more of everything was greed, or so I thought.

The world is not driven by greed but by envy. Our generation is the best it has ever been. We are well off than our ancestors, but we live as if we are behind. We have everything we need.

The problem is that someone else has more. All we have is counted as none because someone else has more than we have, which consumes us, and we become envious. That envy fires our quest after more, and we run after that person until we become equals, we see someone else that has more, and the run starts over again.

Our world runs away from contentment, chasing what seems progress, driven by envy in pursuit of becoming superior. Sadly, we are distant from being happy since there will always be someone who has more. If our happiness relays on us having more than the other, that journey will only be the pursuit of happiness, never to reach its intended goal.

Social media does this very well in powering this envy: it showcases never-ending bling and ding with every swipe of our phone. Our contentment flies out the window; we sip from the glass of sorrow and depression. All are working to trap us in the non-ending rat race, for us to lose our gratitude and swim the deep waters of envy.

I am not saying that every progress comes out of envy per se, but what fuels many of it is. Most of our inventions are not new but just come with slight improvements. Regarding purpose, the things we own now are not that different from what they were. The new ones come with minor betterment but more numbers to the price tag.

When new gadgets come out, we disregard the old ones. The ones we have in our hands are great gadgets, but just because someone else now possesses the new ones, we become consumed with envy. Our desires do not come out of necessity but envy.

When it is greed, we become collectors or hoarders. When it’s envy: however, even our collections’ inherent values disappear since we can never say we have enough as someone else owns something we don’t have, which makes us even more envious.

Even out of the ten commandments, one says, “Though shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” 

Our enemy is envy, so let’s fight against it.

Ask yourself today, what drives me? Is it the need, or is it envy?

    Be all you can be.✌

Let me know your comments below.👇