Being Ambitious is good - but don't be selfish

Today I would like to write a bit about ambitions. About the good and the bad, how I see it and how I think one should treat it. Because usually everyone has it – if even just a little bit!

Usually and, I believe, mostly, you hear about someone’s ambitions in a negative way. I often hear someone describe another person as ‘too ambitious’. There is one exception however: whenever it comes to business, depicting someone as ‘ambitious’ is definitely something positive!

Mention your ambition in a job application and you are giving the manager the impression that you will do everything to get good results. Give an ambitious person a percentage of the money that he brings to the company with his work and success, promise him rewards and progress in his career and he will try hard and even harder to make as much money for the company as possible! A perfect employee – of course until the day he decides that his ambitions are to be the boss himself.

I have had mixed feelings about this emotion. On one hand, I have always felt that it was wrong to see ambitions as something bad. You need them. They are like fuel for people. Ambitions make you put more effort into whatever you are doing – be that your work or your private life. In any area, it will give you the background to meditate on what you are doing, it will make you want to do it properly, so that the result is great.

Without ambitions, the result can just be alright. You do it and that’s it. It doesn’t have to be amazing, it doesn’t have to be special but you get it done. Ambitions bring life and passion into actions.

On the other hand however, I have seen many cases in which you see how ambition practically ruins a person and especially his social life. When someone becomes too ambitious, he works towards his goal without looking left or right. He doesn’t realize anymore that his behavior affects others. He starts being unfair to colleagues to achieve his own goals. He hurts his friends because he only thinks of benefits for himself, not of the disadvantages this brings to others.

Most commonly, however, is that he neglects his wife and children. Or her husband and children, because ambition is not limited to men! Women, too, can get very and extraordinarily ambitious. And whenever this happens for any of the both genders, it turns into selfishness.

In the end, I have to conclude that we just have to find balance. Ambitions to fuel us on our way to achieving healthy goals are good but we may not forget the people around us, the heart, gentleness and softness for others! If you can, make your ambitions help others, too – at least make sure they don’t harm others!

Whatever goal you are pursuing, do it with full effort and ambition – but take care that you don’t lose your heart!