Addiction and greed: how are they related?

We think, and this is a question that the human being has always posed, that in a natural way, the human being is greedy.

Just take a look around us and see that, the more you have, the more you want: money, power, prestige... It is something that can be appreciated simply by paying a little attention to our surroundings.

This is something that is worth analyzing, since the consequences that derive from this behavior are not positive for the people who suffer them. It's more, when someone feels that emptiness, that something is missing in her life, he tends to want to feel better by accumulating objects. They want to have more of everything: clothes, money... And, of course, why not go to drugs, if everyone says that they make you forget your problems and feel better?

The downside, to put it mildly, is that when this type of palliative is used, it is usually a temporary solution. When the effect of purchase or consumption wears off, we go back to being as before, and we want to feel good again, so again we fall into the object of addiction to avoid the emptiness we talked about before.

• Related article: "Types of motivation: the 8 motivational sources"

Greed, a great ally for addiction

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which, in the vast majority of the time, people are measured by what they have. Not because of his intelligence, nor because of his human quality, but because of the material. It is the one with the most money or the most power that must be followed. And this is addictive, wanting more and more brings us to a point where it is difficult to satisfy our desire to have more.

This, on the other hand, makes us think of the reality of the halo effect. If you do not know it, we will tell you that it is more frequent than you might think, and that it consists of the attribution of certain characteristics to two people from a single one that is what calls us the attention. For example, if you have a good car, you are very smart to have earned money to buy it.

Now this presents a major drawback. The fact that by making these value judgments, in the end, we may end up believing them. What we mean is that those false beliefs and those misconceptions end up being part of us, and we end up thinking that, to be good, to have any value, we need to have much more than what have.

This thinking results in that we only think about getting more than what we have, but not only to feel better, but to show how good we are to others. It is the typical "you have so much, you are worth so much."

• You may be interested in: "What is the Halo Effect?"

The much you have, the much you worth?

We tend to want more, we are ambitious and we want to "prosper"; But in reality, the saying that "the richest is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least" is a great truth. There are religions like the Buddhist that reject desire and greed, because, according to their practitioners, it is very difficult to satisfy that desire to possess thingsAnd, if we talk about the needs that we create for ourselves, it is much worse, since by not being able to satisfy them we suffer unnecessarily.

In a way, if we have more things we can have a worse time, since we will cling more intensely to the material, and in case of losing something, we will have a much greater discomfort.

All this makes us ask ourselves something: if as human beings we cover the basic and inherent needs (namely, food and affection), What happens in us so that we are not satisfied and seek more?

Is it possible that this happens because of something that we have been learning throughout our lives? Maybe it's because we have always been told not to settle? That with the basics is not enough? Maybe...

Why not see it from another perspective?

You already know, but we still insist. When you seek to have more always, at all times, that can make you believe in yourself an inner emptiness that is difficult to fill. That emptiness, that feeling that you are incomplete and that you are missing something can make you look for what you do not have in the wrong places, for example, drugs.

It is important that you know how to value what you have, which is a lot. If you have people around you who care about you and who support you, you have a lot. Friends are also important, and you should know how to value them, as well as those little moments that seem insignificant, but are not really.

Remember at all times that you are as valuable and as important as the person next to you, and that it is you that makes you who you are, not the car you drive or the brand of clothing you do you have. Are you.

Do not get addicted to something as unimportant as the material.