Charity Auctions
I recently put a few of my old collectibles on eBay. I knew that some of them were fairly hard to find, so I thought it would be cool to have most of the money go to charity.
It turns out that they were worth more that I had expected. I started them all at 400. Another two had reached $200 each. I started to check the bidding multiple times a day, always thrilled when the price had increased on any of the items.
By the last day of the auction, I was checking the price multiple times an hour. It took my sister commenting on this for me to realize that this wasn't about charity any more. Once the price had risen above a certain point, the auction had become a sort of self-aggrandizing project. Yeah $1000 was now going to charity, but WOW, I really made a good investment on these things.
It took a day for me to sober from the experience. By the time the payments came in and I delivered everything to the post office, I realized how much I'd needed that intervention to save me from myself. Philanthropy is a great thing, but even that can be corrupting if you don't check yourself.
Or have someone willing to offer a healthy dose of criticism.