Human Greed

There are many who think that having just enough should be just enough.  Perhaps that's before they are themselves faced with the dilemma of having more than enough, and then becoming unwilling to surrender any of that more-than-enough.  And seeing themselves desperately striving, even while they have become wealthy, to become even wealthier.  It does, though defy common sense.  How much riches does anyone really need?

There are those who express excess in the spirit of fashion, as in the phrase "you can never be too thin".  For those who prefer wealth to fashion, that phrase would result in the statement, "you can never be too rich".  Once someone's dreams of achieving great wealth have been realized, what more is required?  And how is it that people become so invested in their position of wealth that they refuse to give up any of it, for charity or any other reason.

Certainly not all people react in this way.  But the winner of the world's biggest lottery prize takes the prize, so to speak.  Mirlande Wilson, 37, a Haitian immigrant who worked at a fast food restaurant in Milford Mill, Maryland, insists that the $100-million for which she had the winning ticket is hers, all hers and hers alone.  Her co-workers at that fast-food restaurant, all fourteen of them who had each contributed $5 for the tickets purchased feel the prize is to be shared.

They entrusted her with their money representing a share of the winnings, and trusted that should they miraculously come out winners, all would benefit.  Wrong, dreadfully, terribly wrong.  "I won, I won!"  That's the message she left in a call to the restaurant after the numbers were announced, a scant three and a half hours after she had bought those tickets at a grocery store not far from the McDonald's where they all worked earning $7 an hour.

But she insists that the winning ticket was one she bought with her own money.  Separately from the tickets she bought for the 14-member collective.  So therefore, by her reckoning, the win is entirely hers.  With that kind of wealth she needn't return to the McDonald's outlet to face down her angry co-workers.  They are her co-workers no longer, for she is no longer one of them.

The winning for Ms. Wilson, a mother of seven, was part of a $656-million jackpot shared by three tickets.  Those tickets bought in Maryland (Ms. Wilson), in Illinois and Kansas.  It remains to be seen what kind of controversy erupts over the winners of the tickets purchased in Illinois and Kansas, if any at all. 

$656-million is a lot of money, a treasure-trove of winnings any way it's reckoned.  On the other hand Americans, anxious to claim the winning ticket desperately spent $1.5-billion in the run-up to the draw.
For the countless American citizens who allowed themselves feverish dreams of a fabulous winning ticket, a handful realized their dream.

Lack of generosity of spirit does somehow hamper the celebratory mood.