Human nature

Just recently I have watched a few history programmes, and they have made me acutely aware (and saddened) by the human greed for power.

Why are humans like that? imsad

Is greed, envy and wanting what other's have present in us all?
Is it part of human nature?
Or do only those with those aggressive traits survive, and the others slowly dwindle (or, in some cases, are wiped off the face of the earth by their enemies)?

Peace

Greed and envy are part of our inherent competitive nature, which actually helps us survive in the long run (I'll explain it in a later post if one would like, inshallah)

But as with all of our inherent attributes, when not controlled it is a double edged sword and ends up conflicting with our social nature (i.e working together) by clouding our judgement - and instead we act like jerks (or A-holes).

The beauty of religions (and certainly, the abrahamic ones - Islam in particular) is that they teach self-control to prevent emotions, like greed, from clouding our judgement. Some would argue it supresses those emotions, to which I would use the following analogy:

We (humans) are the Tap, our emotion is the water. Open the tap when you need water; close it when you don't. Simple .