Be vigilant against greed.

There have been people who strive hard academically and achieved success. Yet, these seemilngly successful people succumbed to greed. Greed is an evil force we must constantly be vigilant against.

Greed appears to be a proclivity, a natural tendency of every human being. From a desire for more or better things to come, people can choose to work hard for it or make gains through illegal or immoral means. These people resort to unwarranted, despicable acts which may be criminal.

We have read of shop-lifting, theft, robbery, criminal breach of trust, corruption and white-collar crimes and they all are concerned with money. In all the above cases, we find that the perpetrators were all trying to obtain something which did not belong to them.

Even unionists who sacrifice a lot of their time in order to assist their fellow workers while holding such posts have been known to commit such wrongs in the very union they serve.

The writer has known of at least one unionist who managed to get an interest-free loan from the very union he was holding a very high position in for many years. Such a person ought to know that what he did was definitely wrong.

Yet, when he was exposed, he claimed that he was not aware what he did was not allowed in his union. A high officer in any reputable union knows that it is an offence to obtain such a loan as a union is not a co-operative. Even loans from a co-operative requires interest to be paid for any loan taken.

This unionist, perhaps abetted by other committee members, did not have the discipline or the strength to resist the temptation of using members' money by having an interest-free loan.

For that, the unionist could have been charged for criminal breach of trust, could have lost whatever success or position he had achieved. This unionist was 'lucky' when certain authorities merely required that unionist to return the loan which was illegal to obtain.

However, many may think such a person has escaped easily. He has not! In his own mind, he knows that he had done wrong and was discovered. He knows that he has not been punished for his wrong. His own divine spirit would punish him. In Buddhism, this is known as kharma.

In the study of psychology, we have studied how the mind or shall we say conscience will continue to punish in one way or another.

That is why children should be instilled with discipline so that they do not succumbed so easily to such sins. Let them have the strength to face difficults, beat them and emerge proudly and happily with whatever they have achieved through their own ability. Let there be no necessity for greed.