Photo by Leio McLaren (@leiomclaren) on Unsplash
I was recently contemplating ambition and the force of nature that compels human beings to push forward or not. Pushing forward meaning working towards goals and how we choose to move towards these goals. We live in a culture that celebrates hard work and success. Our success is often defined by what we own and what title we hold in our chosen career. Did you attain fame or notoriety? Where do you live, what kind of dwelling do you live in? How hard did you have to work? Are you working now? Just a scant few of the thousands of ways that success can be measured.
Photo by Adam Jang on Unsplash
Ambition is a force of nature. It moves like a river with an unrelenting force; yet delicately molding and shaping what it flows over. It’s a dance of intricate moves and balancing. Similar to a professional ballerina who performs a high releve on her toes and holds a graceful arabesque; looking fragile and effortless, but requiring intense strength and complex coordination. It’s a perfect game with all the right moves, the team moving expertly through each of their positions and meeting the goal.
As we move toward the goal, there are twists and turns and setbacks, but the river still flows and the key is to move with the flow and don’t stop moving. Let life takes it’s course and you end up in wonderful places. You pass through dark places too, but it’s all transient; sometimes when the bad part is over, it’s almost as if it were a dream.
How much is enough and will ambition fade out and diminish as we age? How long are we willing to stay on the treadmill of life or how long will life let us stay there? As our bodies lose strength and vitality, our minds and spirit grow stronger and balance is maintained. Some say that once you have had the career, the family, that there’s nothing else, but I beg to differ. There is more, so much more.
There is the celebration of life that we wake up to everyday. If we wake up, we are alive and we choose the day ahead. Yes, the circumstances may seem bleak, but as long as you are living, things will most likely change, because life is always changing. And then there is beauty, all around and free. It make just take a tweaking of your perspective, but it’s there.
Ambition is human and it’s fluid. We balance ambition carefully to create the perfect equation for success, whatever that means to us. It’s different for everyone. My choice is to flow with my ambition and have faith that I’ll get there. Stay open to all possibilities and opportunities for growth, sometimes even the scary ones. Change, growing is challenging and as we gain years and experience in life the challenges grow greater and make life exciting and worth living. So we grow, we change and hopefully keep the balance. For that in it’s self is everything.
A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them-
Liberty Hyde Bailey