What is Ambition? What is it not?
Here’s a tale of ambition misunderstood and relearned.
As a child you’re expected to have ambition. Aside from the stereotypical professions, being a valuable corporate slave was the only other redeemable choice we had. It was implied that material comfort and incoherent job titles must follow. Anything less, and you’re a failure.
Ambition is the “willingness to achieve something.”
I was a class topper with a dirty secret- zero ambition. I had no clue why words like ‘career’ and ‘job’, although visibly stressful, had to be mentioned in conversation to sound “focused”. Although cringe-worthy, I knew I had to use them and love them. I also knew, I could go only so far to talk myself into being an “ambitious career oriented professional.”
In the 90’s, the ambitious child was constantly tuned in, voicing opinions in public settings lest he’s ignored and constantly behaving in a manner that validated his existence.
On the other hand, I was reclusive until provoked. I was deeply averse to pleasing people. As for validation- nobody acting out of free-will gets any. I was no exception.
I was not going to make it in this race.
I never competed to be at the top, just got there by mistake. It got problematic when teachers began to validate my position and set me up as an example- because I was not the ideal, but an anomaly, unlike the others who were working hard enough to sit on the pedestal I had occupied by accident. I had better grades than thirty other kids in my class- something that demeans me as well as the other kids- yet, was enough to assume I was neck deep in ambition.
There were things I frequently indulged in- floating with my vivid daydreams and writing- two qualities that slipped under the radar as amusing quirks. Until, like everyone else, I branded these as distractions.
This disconnect split me in half, thus feeding the cycle of being a misfit.
When the time for college came, I was still foggy brained but desperate for clarity. I decided to chip in blindfolded- I was going to get ambitious.
Putting myself aside, I walked a path which was socially acceptable- where I was that “normal” kid with humble expectations, average grades who bleated lines every architect does, to appear like an ambitious professional. I ignored everything about myself that didn’t align with societal standards and simply complied till I got noticed by accident. This chronic alignment cracked me into shards of different people in one person.
And then, things fell apart at full speed.
I was severely burnt out from an education operating on degrading students. Sitting in the deep belly of average, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. And how to address this dilemma without sounding like a ‘whiner’.
I was lost to myself.
The final straw was when I couldn’t write anymore. I couldn’t draw. I couldn’t do the things that had kept me alive. It was different each time- I either could not focus or drew a blank or just could not remember how my imagination translated into something graphic. Ironically, on the surface, I looked fairly ambitious, well adjusted and like every other person.
Forgetting your “self” is a damaging experience. Being so far out, you begin attracting the wrong kind of people. You make life choices out of fear. If anything, I was ambitious about finding what I had lost. And of course, what ambition meant.
Ambition is the willingness to fulfill your purpose, whatever the hell it is, however big or puny it may be.
It’s hard to explain because it is an internal driving force.
Ambition is what floods your mind at night. When you’re finally asleep, it weaves into your dreams. Then you wake up willing to disrupt a stable life built on lies, to do what keeps you alive.
You lose friends and family who drag you down. It comes with the risk of being a social outcast and completely broke. Ambition, in fact, is isolating and deeply personal. Ambition has flaws and failure and the fallacy of going where no sane person would. It follows no clock and functions entirely of iron will and blind faith and disregard of petty opinion.
I still wonder if I’m ambitious or if I confuse it with ten other words, all of which have different meanings. Perhaps it is a word on the CV that nobody really knows.Probably it has to coexist with a few other words to make any sense. Probably it has no right to exist at all.
But then again, who are we to decide what exists and what doesn’t.
