opinion on greed affecting people

After reading Leo Tolstoy’s “How much land does a man need”, I noticed that greed and materialism are not always on the right path for a human. I also found it is not always beneficial for man to have a simple life away from these two traits. I found that sometimes, greed can lead us, human to focus more on what we want and put more effort in order to get it. In my opinion, people should have aims for their life and based on their aims, they should try to make their lives succeed. They might have some extent of greed level to make their dreams come true. The more people wish to get what they want, the more they try to improve themselves and they will think many possible ways to succeed. However, People are not contented even they got what they want. They become greedy more and more.  For example, people who have finished Bachelor degree want to get Master and PhD. These people are greedy with their study. In this case, such kind of greed is good to have.

For some people, greed can mislead them for their passion for the materialism. I found that mostly poor people can be spoiled easily because of their greed.  Due to the wish to earn more money, these poor people will do and can do bad things. I have heard that some girls become social sex workers because they want to earn more money in the easy way. I think greed can mislead to those who are not so educated. Such people will not think properly whether their actions are right or wrong. They just do what they want. So, they can get effects for what they did wrong.

I have a story that my grandma used to tell me about greed makes man regret and have bad effects. Once upon a time, a man in the village has a goose, which lays one golden egg for that man every day. So, the man can make more money every day. However, the man becomes so greedy and he is not contented with getting one golden egg a day. He wants more. So, he thinks that if he kills the goose and gets the golden eggs, he can be rich. Then, he kills the goose and when he dissects the goose’s body, there are no golden eggs. As the result, the man cannot get the golden eggs for the rest of his life and he loses his goose too.

In the case of Pahom in the Leo Tolstoy’s “How much land does a man need”, the ways he tried to be richer is acceptable, but , it is risky. First, in order to get the lands, he sold his colt, got the wages for letting his son labor in advance, and lent the money from his brother in law. The greed made him to take a risk and try harder and harder. He can do well and make his life to earn more money and make his life more comfortable. This is good. We can see that if he had not had greed, he would not try hard and he would not change his living condition. However, the greed he has for getting the lands from the Bashkir leads him to death. That is not good and right. He even take risk of his life over lands. In the end, he gets nothing.

For the facts mentioned above, I think that greed can sometimes good and make people try hard,also, it can destruct people and make them wrong.