On Ambition

Does one need ambition to work hard or be successful in life? Let's look at the definition first: 'a strong desire to do or achieve something'. I guess I had a different idea of the word ambition. When I think of ambition I guess I think of having a lot of motivation but more than that I think of greed. When I think of all the people who I have heard called ambitious I think of someone who is ready to push aside others in order to make it to the top.

Haha that reminds me of the Zoolander line "No matter how many people you leave broken or dying along the way, so long as you can make it as an investigatory journalist (x3)" or some such. But yeah I guess that is what I think of, but that doesn't make sense when I think of all the successful people that Tim Ferriss interviews. While just about all of them are ambitious, at the same time the majority of them seem to make helping people one of their major goals in life. So I guess that makes my preconceptions of ambition pretty silly then.

Well while I would say I'm not ambitious about accruing a lot of material wealth I think I can honestly say I am ambitious about learning. If ambition is simply a strong desire to do something then I guess it can't be bad by itself. Now lets get back to the first question I posed.

If one has a good work ethic then I think it is possible to work hard and be successful regardless of ambition(strong desire). But then what motivates the work ethic? For me I would say I am motivated to have a good work ethic because I have a strong desire to show quality in everything that I do. So there we have it - ambition again. But can you have a good work ethic without ambition? What other reasons would you have? If there is no strong desire motivating you then would there be only negative consequences motivating you? Wouldn't that only end up badly?

I believe that humans need to do what they want. Now I don't mean that people just need to go out and have fun and they need nothing more than merriment in life. I mean that if you have no desire to do a thing then you shouldn't make that one of your major goals in life. I believe excellence follows desire/passion (defining which is another whole talk by itself), and if you attempt to apply yourself to something you have no desire to do then you will be pushing the boulder up the hill.

Of course a lot of the time people don't know what they want. People don't know what their ambition is. Sometimes people think they want something but they don't really understand it. That of course is where it gets really complicated and it's different for every person.

That is life.