Ambition

The word ambition has many connotations. The definition changes according to the person's level of desire. Ambition is a driving force.

Ambition is what propels people to act, to do things better than others. Ambition is a desire to achieve, a passion to do what others have not done. Ambition urges you to be a pioneer, to think of things which others have not thought of before. Ambition is the ability to dream on a higher scale.

Hence ambitious people can never be compalcent, timid or lazy. They never dither, never procrastinate or vacillate. An ambitious person never says: I can't. An ambitious person always says, I have to.

To realise your ambition you have to be proactive, you have to strive in order to rise above mediocrity, above the humdrum and the stereotype. Ambition is to excel, to create, to progress or just to attempt things others have not ventured.

President Theodore Roosevelt said, "men with ambition are souls who know neither victory nor defeat". Such people are men and women of action.

They are fighters and strugglers who become the butt of critics. They are the people who will err and stumble, but will valiantly resume their march.

People with ambition are those who toil with great conviction and zeal. They will spend themselves for a worthy cause and even if they fail, at least they would have failed for a higher cause.

Hence their place will never be with those who have neither failed nor succeeded because they have never even tried.

And so said Mark Twain, "Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. 

Small people always do that, but the really great people make you believe that you too can become great."

This has been demonstrated over and over again when we read the astonishing success stories of rags to riches, metaphorically speaking.

In the fierce rat race of today, when competition has escalated many folds with globalisation, having an ambition is crucial in order to merely survive and hence the buzz word has become survival of the fittest. without ambition it will be impossible even to hold out in the ever intensifying rat race.

just as it ca be commendable, ambition can also be despicable if not sublimated with idealism.

Raw ambition exudes negative energy, greed and selfish ruthlessness. History has shown to us time and again the ugly face of ambition.

Adolf Hitler's ambition to create a pure Aryan race: Napolean Bonaparte's ambition to be emperor of all of Europe and Aurangazeb's ambition to be emperor of India are all examples of devastating ambitious greed.

The perspective of 'Come what may', or 'at all costs', or 'the end justifies the means', ;eaves behind blazing trail of destruction.

Ambition without idealism becomes an ignoble desire. Literature has many illustrations. William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth', Christopher Marlowe's 'Dr. Faustus', Oscar wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' and R L Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' are all instances of power hungry individuals who eventually destroy themselves.

As Buddha said: " Because of this craving for riches the fool undermines himself", Absent from idealism ambition transgresses into greed and the end becomes your nemesis.

Sunderlal G Mehta