How Can We Shift Our Teen’s Habits from Greed to Gratitude?
Recently, I engage in a healthy discussion with my students while teaching them on Google Classroom. The topic was to how we can contribute to the social wellbeing of our neighbours and our surrounding people. Interestingly, may students come up with creative ideas like calling them, try to talk to them, listening to their issues and concerns, through time and knowledge etc. One student questioned, why sometimes people feel reluctant to share their skills and goodness with others? This idea of demanding less and sharing more makes me think why sometimes destroy our chances and valuable resources to an unprofitable action motivated by our greed.
In a world driven by consumerism and worldly desires, teens are much more demanding than the previous generation. The demands can be of any form, from securing more marks in an academic paper than earning more money in an average job. Whenever the word ‘a little bit more’ comes in our mind, it means we are not happy with what we are actually having. The urge to possess more always leads an individual to an uneasy path of greed and stress. Resulting in losing the resources that we already owned. The story of goose and the golden egg is the age-old
I have started making short animated inspirational videos for children discussing fundamental values in a story-telling format. Every story will convey a message, in the end, to reflect upon whether we are leading our lives in the right manner or not? The fourth instalment of this series, the story of the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs, is one of Aesop’s Fables that numbered 87 in the Perry Index. A story that has also been retold in several Eastern analogues. The tale has given rise to the idiom ‘killing the goose that lays the golden eggs’, which refers to the short-sighted destruction of a valuable resource to an unsatisfied urge of greed.
Let’s watch this beautiful, timeless story.
So sorry I haven’t kept up with this, but this is genuinely amazing. I think it’s a fantastic way to get the conversation started.
🙂 Thanks dear and I am impressed by your analysis in the previous videos as well ( I believe it was you as way of writing is same 🙂 and in both the comments, name was not mentioned). If you have any suggestions for my future content feel free to contact :).
Very True, the desire of owning more and more without being patient and grateful for what we already posses makes us Greedy. However, the Greed it self is a motivation if taken as positive, such as urge of moving forward towards achievement and goals. Yet in general, we often perceive it as negative, due to not being able to differentiate between our wants and needs and thus become impatient. Moreover, i think the thought of not sharing the skills and goodness with other might be connected to lack of clarification. Because, in my view, clarity is superior than being confident 🙂
Thanks for the appreciation and yes, i completely agrees with you that something wanting more and do handwork for that want cannot be considered as greed. However, when we know the limitations of our resources and still impatiently tries to get more from it, than i believe the efforts shifted from hardwork to greed. To differentiate that, I would infer your idea of clarification 🙂