NEED FOR GREED Explore & Exploit Give a beggar food & he calls you a saint. Ask him why he is poor in a bid to help him & he will call you a fool...Sad ! Greed is good,..if its in moderation! We are greedy creatures by nature and although the extent varies, it is something that drives our ingenuity & competiveness. ‘The Triple Package’ (authored by Yale Prof.Amy Chua) states the critical elements which drive result-oriented persons as; 1.Deep sense of exceptionality/ Confidence 2.Insecurity; the need to do more & better 3.Impulse control; resilience & perseverance Unfortunately, it is in human nature to gain complacency & lose our edge & focus as we acquire a feeling of security & comfort. We can identify & exploit greed in a very positive manner without the risk of depriving or punishing success born from ‘healthy- greed’ (smart ambition & hard-work).

This is why people migrate from areas with fair income equality to areas with high inequality in a bid to explore & exploit chance. There are some things that money can buy & others that money can’t buy. Then there are some things that money can buy but should never be bought. Many things around us are being priced & as a result some serious moral issues are arising. For instance: kids being paid $2 for each book they read(in Dallas); or accident patients buying new blood in hospitals; or body-organs on sale offered by poorer people seeking survival(India); or developed nations selling their citizenship expensively to only the richest immigrants; or rich nations buying environment pollution-rights in poor nations. Our morality should not allow problems born by excessive greed to just be ‘paid-off’. Paying pupils to read more books will lead to more pupils doing it in the short-run but for the wrong reasons.

An interesting experiment was carried out once, in which all parents were charged a $5 fine for late pick-up of their children from school. Surprisingly, in the second week the number of late pick-ups doubled instead of decrease, because more parents realized that late pick-ups were now affordable. There is an increasing confusion between a deterrent fine(penalty used for moral-correction) & a fee(price for an agreed service). Similarly, if our kindness is offered then it is a gift, but if it is priced & bought then it becomes a commercial commodity that you too might not afford one day. I believe that healthy greed & kindness can co-exist. So, now ask yourself, what price should be attached to kindness? Should it have a price other than the simple act of reciprocity?