We’re all born brave, trusting, and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.
Mignon McLaughlin
Beware of those who are stingy, for they would rather sting you than give you anything.
Suzy Kassem
Image by benzoix on Freepik
Do you know that stingy people are often greedy? I would know because I have been there, done that, but most of all I have been around such people. From the whole experience, I have realized that stinginess is something we are all born with, however, empathy brings out the humanity in us which makes us often overcome stinginess and greed. And I'm quite certain that every man has a level at which they lack empathy and become stingy, and sometimes our desires also make us greedy no matter how good we are. I will say a man without desire is a man totally free of greed.
The issue with greed and stinginess is that it becomes about you and what you want, and most times the end is used to justify the means. I started accepting I was stingy when I sat down one day to ask myself a simple question; "All this money I'm making what am I using it for?" At that time I was already working for some time, and I stopped giving money to the house (my family) there was always a genuine excuse as to why I needed to keep everything or use it for something I wanted to do that I deemed important. It became worse because I wanted to achieve certain things but I wasn't taking care of myself and my family. I looked at myself in the mirror after my mum had talked sense into me and saw how bad I looked. My greed for more money was making me stingy thinking it was a sacrifice, and I had to call myself back to order.
Image by stockking on Freepik
Stingy people tend to be greedy and vice versa, they will rather have more and give less no matter how much they have, most give nothing but still require more with the mentality that it's not enough. For them, nothing is ever enough. During my first year in school, one of my roommates who were in the engineering department alongside three of us in the room was always fond of saying "my own is not enough" although he wasn't always stingy to me he was too every other person. One day he told me the reason he gives to only me is that I am different from every other person in the room, he said he was always amazed at how I treated everyone whether or not I had. But then there was another in the room who was worse, we would watch him cook a full pot of soup and finish it on the go, with a basin of eba. He was bigger than everyone in the room and what he often eats is equal to what every other person in the room ate. At a point it was as though both these guys were running out of cash, the one who gave to only me would often ask me, and I will give him, but the other one started stealing in the hostel to meet up with his already expensive life until he was caught trying to steal some computers in the school computer lab and immediately expelled and arrested.
Image by jannoon028 on Freepik
These two guys made me understand there are levels of greed and stinginess, but we must decide who we want to be. There are still times I purposefully choose to be stingy, but a majority of those times my stingy plan fails, and there are times when I have to caution myself not to be greedy, like some time ago when I borrowed money from a loan app because I needed it to save alive after I paid back the money, the loan agency gave me access to more funds at a time when I needed to change my phone. I knew taking the offer will be out of greed and not need because although the phone is bad, I could manage it as I work for a better one, which I am still doing to date. Checking myself and reflecting on my actions is what has kept me in line anytime my stingy or greedy nature shows forth.
Thanks again for stopping by my blog today, until next time.