When Nothing Is Ever Enough

A desire for a new reality to manifest is intrinsic to our dreams and goals in life. When birthed from pure awareness and out of transcending love, desire is an important quality that leads to satisfaction, happiness, and rewarding life.

However, when the desire arises from insecurity and fear, it inevitably manifests itself as greed that hinders you from finding true fulfillment even if your material dreams come true.

Greed is that selfish desire for more than is needed. It’s an appetite that cannot be quenched that lends itself toward selfish craving and hoarding. Various spiritual texts denounce its attributes. According to Buddhism, compulsively seeking happiness through acquiring material things fundamentally hinders enlightenment. The New Testament speaks of greed as preventing us from receiving the inner peace, joy, and righteousness of the Kingdom of God.

Greed stems from a fear of life or a fear of lack. When a feeling of lack is accentuated, one becomes fixated on getting ‘that one thing’ one needs that is supposedly going to eliminate the deep-rooted feeling of not having enough. We all know that greed has an appetite that is never satisfied. Whether money, sex, power, knowledge, drugs, food, all kinds of possessions, one thing will always lead to one more thing. Fear of lack in the deepest recesses of our hearts will always prompt us to want more.

Often it begins in childhood. Maybe parents were absent, unavailable, or unable to provide the love the child needed. It could have been the death of a parent, living in poverty, or a parent addicted to drugs. Whatever the circumstance, the effect on the child is an unfulfilled need, a sense of deprivation, or a feeling of not having enough. The infant experienced a lack that developed into a fear of never getting enough of what he or she needs. Life through the eyes of the child is seen as scarce, unreliable, and not enough for happiness.

In the deep trenches of the heart, we develop a belief that our wellbeing depends on: ‘Getting as much as I can. Life is limited. There isn’t enough for all. So before other people take my share, I need to get what belongs to me.’

Later in life, these early experiences turn into a well-honed subconscious subscript based on a fear of lack – a world of not enough for everyone. How that subscript expresses itself depends upon the person’s idea of what they really need. Most often, it is evidenced by an unending need, a compulsive obsession, for more money, attention, power, fame, sex, etc.

What about turning dreams into reality? When pursuing a dream, the danger is that if the dream is propelled by a fear of lack rather than a love for humanity and altruism, it will spiral into greed that will never be satisfied. In this case, you will never be content because no matter how much you succeed, there’s an unending craving for more.

Such dreams will eventually begin to feel suffocating, stifling, and paralyzing. You come to understand that what began under the bright light of hope for a better future turned into a torturing tyrant. The fear of lack that expresses itself through greed becomes the master that may know how to deliver material success, but not success complemented by happiness and satisfaction in life.

That’s the path of greed! Ungrateful in its nature, greed is paralyzing to the mind. It views the world through the lens of scarcity. It protects its own turf, and finds its worth in material wealth. But there’s a better path. It’s called grace (read more tomorrow)…

Adapted from David Youngren, Beyond Limits