I just saw this post from one of my favorite blogs that made me stop and think, and I wanted to share it and my reaction to it with you, dear friends:
“sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success.” I believe differently than Mr. Steinbeck on this subject, as I believe those are traits that lead to suffering, pain, loneliness, disconnectedness, despair, and grief, while “kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling” lead to a life of greater and more lasting joy. Perhaps Mr. Steinbeck’s definitions of success and failure were simply different than mine.
Russ
“It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
John Steinbeck
Russ Towne's A Grateful Man 