Ambition
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about ambition. All my life I have been exceedingly ambitious. When I was young it was about baseball; that day I hit a home run over the fence it all seemed worth it. When I started getting older it was about getting into the best high school available to me; I did, and was valedictorian. During high school, I had to be the best clarinet player around; sophomore year, I was the first chair clarinet in the all-state band. Then it was all about getting into the best college; thus, the Ivy League was the logical choice. Once I got here, I had to study the most difficult subjects imaginable; physics and philosophy turned out not to be enough, so I took on a 3rd major in economics last Fall. These days it’s all about getting a job. If my ambitious tendencies continue, there’s little doubt that I will be making six figures within 5 or 6 years out of college. Then off to business school at Harvard, Penn, Chicago, or Stanford.
At least that’s been the plan all along. Lately, however, I’m starting to wonder. The business world is not as pure as I had once believed. It is not a world where ambition or intelligence matters. It is a world ruled by connections, where even the rawest logic can be denied. Things just aren’t what they used to be. I’m used to getting whatever I want in life, so long as I work hard to get it. Here, hard work is meaningless. It’s who you know, not what you know.
As a result, I am starting to question everything, even ambition. I am beginning to wonder whether or not any of it is worth it. Why do I want an intense career? Why not do something chill instead? I can still lead a comfortable life; I will be successful in anything I decide to do.
There have been nagging doubts lately about whether or not I am on the right path, about whether or not ambition is what I should continue to value. To be honest, I’m not sure. There are a number of things that I want out of life. Happiness is obvious. I have always believed that one of the keys to the meaning of life is to help the human race to progress, so another factor would be helping to make that happen. These two factors are really most of what I think there is to it.
The problem is I’m not sure that ambition is a necessary condition for achieving either of the two factors listed above. Surely one can make a difference without ruling the world. Moreover, happiness does not need ambition, in general. Of course, if one’s essence depends on ambition, then surely ambition IS a necessary condition for happiness. My worry is that this is my problem. Could I be happy working a 9-5 and then come home to the wife and kids, plop down on the couch, watch Wheel of Fortune, a few sitcoms, go to bed and then do it all again the next day?
The life described above does, admittedly sound like a living hell. Not that I don’t want a family, that’s not the part I mean. I’m looking forward to the wife and kids! I’m talking about the monotony – the feeling that my life is stagnant and that I am not a prime mover in society. I think that this is important to me, mostly because I think that I have a lot to offer to society.
At any rate, this is the internal struggle currently taking place within me: Ambition or the easy life. I have had friends take both tracks, and both are happy. So perhaps it is a moot question. Yet, that does not make it any less difficult or any less important personally. Unfortunately, I am the only one that can answer it for me.