The unstoppable greed

There is always a devil part in every people. That devil part makes people forget to appreciate what they currently possess, let luxurious dreams attract and take their consciousness away. The miserable price they have to pay at the end of the day is sadly their lives. That's what Tolstoy tries to tell the readers through his wonderful short story "How much land does a man need?" The story of Pahom definitely makes us stop a minute to think about ourselves and learn a valuable lesson about materialist culture, in the words, our greed. I believe a simpler life is great, but if you know how to control your greed, there is definitely not always some ending like Pahom's.

So why a simple life is great? Throughout the story, the readers can notice how much Pahom has changed and then suffered by his changing personality. He had a happy stable life at first with his wife, his farm, his crops, and his herds of cattle. They did not even care for a luxurious, fancy, and nonsense life like the Elders had. However, the evil greed for land makes him become a totally different person because he lost his personality to it. Therefore, if he did not care about having more lands at first, he would have a better ending of the story. He would stay away from anxiety and ambitions and enjoy the simple life.

The greed appears everywhere and every time, especially now. For example, buying land is merely just like every business transactions, including buying stocks from stock markets. It's a risky 'game' that I have seen a lot of people start losing everything as soon as they get involved in it. The magical attraction of money with a big profitability has made people who are so rich one day fall into bankrupted the next day, while making people who are poor become a millionaire. So what is the process of destruction of qualities on this? At first, people, who are probably novices, always want to try buying stocks. If they win, most of them want to continue by buying more and more stocks. However, the stock market is a very unpredictable place that gives you a big profit at a moment but take it and your assets away in a blink. They might even make some loans from the creditors to invest more in the stocks but what will happen if the worse comes to worse: they are not able to pay when the debts are due?

Nevertheless, no matter you buy land or stocks, you need to stay conscious and know when to stop during the 'game'. In stock markets, a lot of people learn the rules of the game very well: surfing which means when you feel you get a good enough amount of profit, you just do not rush to buy more, stop real fast and wait for the next opportunity. They are a very calm and smart people that might lose money for a little advantage ahead of them but wait for the big opportunities to come.

Life is always a journey. It's good to live a normal life, but sometimes we need to take a risk. The risk might bring you failures but a lot of invaluable lessons as well. Just to remember that you can lose everything except for your personality and your own life when taking that lesson.