Ambition
It's a peculiar thing, the way people think of 'ambition'.
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands," says the writer of the first epistle to the Thessalonians. Hardly the sort of behaviour one would expect from a possessor of 'naked ambition'. The fact is, when someone whispers to another person about a third party's ambition, it is probably descriptive of something very much the opposite.
I like to see ambition as the natural outgrowth of the word ambit, which signifies the range of one's reach or breadth of concern. While it is true that Browning wrote, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" it is not necessary that his reach should be particularly grasping.
I remember suffering quite a lot over the years, as people kept attempting to attribute various sweeping and overreaching ambitions to me. Unhappily for the truth of their claims, I am not ambitious in the sense of wanting to dominate some vaguely-conceived political or educational landscape. I just want to be a teacher, to warn the idle, encourage the timid, help the weak and be patient with everyone. It is sufficient ambition for me.
It's hard to remain your own person, though, when people assume you will automatically work to 'self-actualize' (a horrible term, that) and fulfil lofty ambitions or mad power-hungry ambitions or whatever. Either you get so irritated that you feel perhaps you should get powerful enough to silence these silly people (which doesn't work) because "You're a man and it's good for you to be ambitious" or you get so irritated that you feel you should do something sub-standard just to prove that you haven't a grain of excellence in your body.
My patent remedy for this doesn't work that well, but it helps. I just do what I want, help as many people as I can, and make sure that I can live with the work I do. It no longer upsets me that half the world seems to think I could do more and the other half seems to think I'm showing off. Whatever, whatever. Life is too short.
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands," says the writer of the first epistle to the Thessalonians. Hardly the sort of behaviour one would expect from a possessor of 'naked ambition'. The fact is, when someone whispers to another person about a third party's ambition, it is probably descriptive of something very much the opposite.
I like to see ambition as the natural outgrowth of the word ambit, which signifies the range of one's reach or breadth of concern. While it is true that Browning wrote, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" it is not necessary that his reach should be particularly grasping.
I remember suffering quite a lot over the years, as people kept attempting to attribute various sweeping and overreaching ambitions to me. Unhappily for the truth of their claims, I am not ambitious in the sense of wanting to dominate some vaguely-conceived political or educational landscape. I just want to be a teacher, to warn the idle, encourage the timid, help the weak and be patient with everyone. It is sufficient ambition for me.
It's hard to remain your own person, though, when people assume you will automatically work to 'self-actualize' (a horrible term, that) and fulfil lofty ambitions or mad power-hungry ambitions or whatever. Either you get so irritated that you feel perhaps you should get powerful enough to silence these silly people (which doesn't work) because "You're a man and it's good for you to be ambitious" or you get so irritated that you feel you should do something sub-standard just to prove that you haven't a grain of excellence in your body.
My patent remedy for this doesn't work that well, but it helps. I just do what I want, help as many people as I can, and make sure that I can live with the work I do. It no longer upsets me that half the world seems to think I could do more and the other half seems to think I'm showing off. Whatever, whatever. Life is too short.
etched with acid at 7:45:00 am
2 Comments:
hey sir... we spent today reading all 89 posts of your blog.
Greg especially likes the "wanderer's wisdom poem"
*grin* I hope you guys didn't get indigestion...
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