More is Not Terrible

​By: Andrew Meggitt

​In my many life questioning philosophical conversations with fellow polymuse Dan. One
conversation with no answer that grows on the verbal agar often is that of the children, family
and the values we think we are instilling in the children. There are many rabbit holes Lewis
Carroll would be proud of.
We have at times discussed this in relation to greed and the selfish, not the wealthy or rich but
the greedy. There is a difference, wealth and riches can be measured by many vessels, the soul,
happiness, family, ecumenical well being, spirituality and well money. Greed is well, greed -
selfish desire for wealth and power or food. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy or rich.
98.00 % of us have at sometime in our life have said under our breath, that would be nice. Nice
house or whatever, we all suffer from the chartreuse monster at some point. As we are about to
send the young men into the world from our house we have had numerous talks about greed is
bad and wealth is good. It is a fine line is it not. What is wealth Dad? Wealth is happiness with
your place in the world, are you contributing, are you serving the community in some way, do
you help with conservation, are you kind and honest. Values will be different in every home.
We place value on very different parts of our own lives, mine are love, family and the wonderful
public lands we have in the USA.
At some point I have to help them understand that they need to provide for themselves and/or
whoever they choose to have in their lives, if they do not already both are far smarter than I am.
All this said it is a work in progress, time will tell.
In recent times I have observed greed and selfishness, the grab it now mentality. We have
observed this play out in the workplace, in the political arena and many other places. It is
detrimental to those third parties caught in the trample for the pursuit of more. This in turn
creates negative environs in which we are forced to continue to navigate while picking up
survivors on the way, often confused as to why they may have been treated in a certain way for
example.
The question at hand is when is enough and what is enough, the pursuit of more is engrained in
the national psyche, but the pursuit of what. This flows from understanding your own value
system and being able to change course and maintain your own integrity. More is not terrible,
could be more love, more spirituality, more income, more family. When we think of an action
we are about to take, would we want it read in our eulogy, is it something that makes us proud?