In a lot of situations in everyday life, we can observe that possession, importance and power are important to many people. Some entrepreneurs, but also employees, are guided in their daily choices by the desire to have wealth, to be significant and to have power. These three desires (desire for wealth, desire for significance and desire for power) are not in themselves bad things. These desires can be turned to good, they can serve well not only for those who have power, significance and goods, but also for other people who are not coping in life and need help (e.g. unemployed, refugees, homeless).
Possession of wealth, importance and power can and should be used for one’s own development and to help others around us. In many countries there are a lot of homeless people, destitute people, unemployed people, etc. Before I move on to my reflections on the aforementioned wealth, meaning and power (as well as humility and service), I will quote an extensive passage from Andre Manaranche’s book, Droga wolności, (Polish edition, Warsaw 1973).
On pages 128-130 we can read (my English translation from Polish):
“(…) of riches and of all other material possessions one makes Mammon, a sort of idol in competition with God, (Mt 6:24); for the accumulation of riches exempts us from asking for daily bread as our whole hope. (…) a breakdown in the bonds of fraternity, expressed in the rejection of consideration for the poor, in the humiliation of loved ones for one’s own well-being, in an understanding of power as absolute domination over others, which is a sinful attitude because it is fundamentally “anti-Christian”, when it is true that the Lord came to serve (Lk 22:24-27). This is especially true of this intransigent attachment to possessions, which in turn leads to a desire for importance and, from there, to a lust for power, since the pursuit of gold is the first motive of this satanic logic, which causes the breaking of all ties with God and with people.
(…)
It is this logic that The Incarnate Word (that is, Jesus Christ – explanation by the author of this entry) comes to destroy by opposing it with a diametrically opposite logic, which from poverty tends towards humility, and from humility towards service (…)
The desire to possess, to achieve significance and power, without losing its dynamism at all, must henceforth be driven by a completely different spirit. Politics will not automatically become an idyll and economics a charitable establishment, (…) but both politics and economics will have to submit to their proper task. In other words, service to others is not their negation but their raison d’être.”
And now my reflection. The desire for personal development is often linked to the desire to make money; many entrepreneurial people earn quite a bit above average; they have a right to do so and no one doubts that. At the same time, however, we could experience a situation where, with the development of entrepreneurial people, the situation of those who are in a difficult life situation could improve.
My reflexion will be continued in the next post (available soon).
Dare to live. It’s YOUR life.
daretolive72
DARE TO LIVE 