Ambition might be the source of our misery
Disclaimer
Before I begin, I think I should first start by saying this article is in no way meant to dissaude anyone from being ambitious.
Secondly, this title might be a click bait 😉😉
I’ve had interesting conversations over the last few days or so. I was having a conversation with a friend and she told me about how Caroline Mutoko once came to her school and spoke to them about being average…going to an average school, getting average marks, getting an average job, marrying an average husband, getting kids who go to an average school, and the cycle continues. Another friend told me about how the cousin seemed happy yet she led an average life. And I ended up having close to an hour conversation with someone who asked me how it felt like to always wake up and know what I am going to be doing next week. All these conversations circled around the same concept…being happy (or miserable) with life.
We’ve all heard the stories of people in the countryside, and how they all seemingly look happy. I don’t purport to know if they are happy but I think most of us can agree that they do seem content. At least more than the rest of us. Being happy is an ambiguous and esoteric viewpoint on life. I am not sure striving for happiness is a worthwhile pursuit. I don’t think it's possible for one to define his or her life as a happy one. Life is fluid. Happiness is a state of mind, one which heavily depends on context and individual. But calmness…peace from the mind (and not necessarily “of”) is what we yearn for. And that comes from truth, and the truth comes from acceptance. Acceptance of life as it is…not as it was nor as you wish for it to be…but fully accepting life as it presently is. That’s hard.
There’s an episode in Heroes (someone seriously ruined this show for me, but I still think there are gems that can be picked up from it) where Linderman tells Nathan that there comes a time in a man’s life where he has to choose between happiness and a life of meaning, implying that one cannot attain both.
To be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present. And with no thought of what’s gone before, and no thought of what lies ahead. But, a life of meaning… A man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future
Ambition taps into two things. The first is our competitiveness as humans. Competitiveness connotes comparison. What you compare yourself to depends entirely on you. Some of us make the comparison with our past self, the future self we want to be, or with others whom we perceive to be better than us. Whatever the case, therein lies comparison. The second thing is control. The implication that somehow, we have control over our future.
While I believe that we can improve our odds and that certain actions if taken consistently improve our odds of attaining the future we desire, I think it's rather ludicrous to think that one truly has full control. Competition, too, is not a bad thing. Because how then do you strive to be better? To grow? What I’m trying to say is ambition, in and of itself, is not a bad or a good thing…albeit it’s why many of us cannot attain peace from the mind. Or so I think.
We obsess too much about ambition. To lack it is frowned upon. To be content is viewed as a failure. We were taught to leave our mark in the world. We grew up on the belief that we are special. I am not trying to burst any bubble here. I think we are all special, in our unique way. And I think we can all leave our dent in the world. But, seriously, is it plausible that all of us will conquer the world?
