People always want to attain their desires. Sometimes desire is such a strong urge that it cannot be avoided. Many people desire to have possessions that do not satisfy their needs. People often crave materialistic items that are luxuries like money, expensive house and cars, and expensive clothing and jewelry. I often confuse materialistic items with my needs. My desire is so strong that these seemingly important treasures often push past my needs. As a child, I would often use my desires for selfish reasons. This selfishness would manipulate my parents into purchasing or obtaining objects that would not satisfy our needs, but desires.
Desire is derived from the Latin word desiderare that means to miss, long for, and desire. Desiderare lead to the creation of the twelfth century Old French word desir is currently spelled like the English word desire, but nothing has changed much except for the pronunciation. The Latin word desiderare meaning to miss, long for, and desire, is almost similar with selfish desires, because many people believe they are missing something they do not have, they are longing for possessions that they want, and they are desiring personal treasures they do not need.
I always want things that I do not need. The things I want are rarely needs, but desires. When I was younger my thoughts of necessities were toys, games, and fancy clothing. I never realize that there were more important possessions like a place to reside, food to nourish the body, and other important factors that helped contribute to my well-being. Desire is an act of wanting, yet people become more selfish with their desires.
I often desire objects that will not benefit me. That action is often considered as selfishness. ...
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... on one decisions and that is the desire.
Works Cited
“Desire.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Edition. 1991. Print.
Dickinson, Emily. “So proud she was to die.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson: With an Introduction by Her Niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1924. Page 240. Print.
The Holy Bible Containing The Old and New Testaments. King James Version Edition. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984. Print.
“NASCAR Considering Radical Changes.” Opelika-Auburn News. 19 Jan. 2014. 2b. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature. Common Core State Standards Edition. Brenda Owens, ed. St. Paul, Minnesota: EMC Publishing, 2012. Pages 341-433. Print.
Waite, Maurice, and Sara Hawker. Compact Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus. 3rd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
During the Romantic and Victorian period of British literature, several works were written about desire. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulyssess,” and Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” all have characters who desire something grander than they can ever obtain. In Frankenstein, the Monster desires love, but he does not know how to love or even what love is. Úlyssess wants adventure, yet he is old, foolish, and selfish. The speaker in “Dover Beach” longs for the world to turn back to Christianity, but the speaker cannot control what society does.
“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it. (Krakauer 155)
There is something that I’ve always found very interesting and that is the fact that everyone wants something they don’t have, it can be recognition, material things or even a human being. This is something people take for granted but I think it’s a true game changer, because we (humans) don’t have a limit, we always want more and that’s what leads us to do the things we do, to take the decisions we take, to live the way we live.
“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” ( http://thinkexist.com/quotes/sylvia_plath/)
It's true that this desire for things is what drives our economy. The free market has given us great blessings, but it has in some ways also put us on the wrong path -- the path to a selfish, unhappy society. Michael Lerner, who worked as a psychotherapist to middle-income Americans notes that
...helter, food, clothing, and fuel for survival. The Market Revolution in the 19th century changed the mindset of copious individuals about their essential needs. With new innovations that make goods cheaper and easily obtainable, people's greed for more possessions grew. However, the incessant growth of one's desires make the individual a "slave" of their desires because they devote their time in earning money to acquire more, thus losing their freedom. Henry David Thoreau agreed that people enslaved themselves to materialistic possessions and often they forget the genuine meaning of living. Faced with the choice of increasing one’s ability to acquire more goods and decreasing one’s needs, Thoreau believed that minimizing one’s desire will lead to favorable account as individuals gain the chance to enjoy the meaning of life and welcome what nature provide them with.
In society today, everything is about the “now”. Everyone wants something instantaneously. Because of the desire for instant gratification, people are overcome by what they desire which causes them to quench their yearnings by obtaining what they want. For example, an individual that has just graduated from high school and he wants money, so he gets a job at a fast-food chain instead of pursuing a college degree. He wants money now and does not want to pay for college even though he would be making more money over his lifetime in his profession than he does at the fast food-chain.
desires can be engaged without reason. Their thoughts are consumed by their desires for the
...tion we will receive our desired result. People only do actions to satisfy there crave and to get a certain outcome out of it that comes after doing that action. Some people's outcomes result in a selfish and cruel act, but the only reason that person is taking that act is because they crave for the outcome of doing that action. On the other hand some actions of greed can lead to good results, like if a person's car's battery died on the side of the road. Another person will feel the desire to help the unfortunate person to make themselves feel like they did a good deed and leave them with a good feeling and that person is doing a act of greed. So greed can be good and bad, but with Mathilde Loisel her desire was extremely excessive and it portrayed an important point that if you can find happiness by yourself you will need other things or people to make you happy.
Holy Bible: the New King James Version, Containing the Old and New Testaments.Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Bibles, 1982. Print.
I think and say to myself over and over again, why, why must this world be how it is? As a mortal human, it's normal to want more than what you have. This situation is very well known in America. It's called overindulging. Feeling the need that one of something just isn't enough. That is wrong. Even though, us humans think it is natural, we don't deserve the extra something when it isn't needed.
Greed, being a key human condition, has shaped society from the very start. In fact, some scholars believe that greed was the first major milestone of human success, when the first human wondered why he/she had to scrounge around for necessities; it is a part of being human to be greedy. Wanting a new car, to be loved by another, or to desire the feeling of well doing when feeding the needy, these are all factions of greed...
a need for a good not yet acquired or possessed.” In other words we want what
...es us how to free our minds from these negative desires. In order to free our bodies from karma attached to us. We have to realize the purpose of our lives and what we have to do in order to please God. Finally, in the Book of Job, Job eventually lets his desire take over his mind and turn down his trust in God. Desire is a feeling that’s naturally in human beings and if an individual can rid themselves of the negative desires. It will ultimately benefit that individual but in the Book of Job, The Letter of Abelard and Heloise, and The Bhagavad-Gita. Desire is presented not only as a bad thing but a desire can ultimately ruin our life.
According to Vocabulary.com, greed is an overwhelming urge to have more of something, usually more than one really needs. Greed is often connected with money, a desire to acquire as much of it as possible but it can refer toward anything, like food or material possessions. Greed is not merely " I want more". Greed is "I want more than everybody else".