What Does Your ‘Ambition Album’ Say to You?

Until a few months ago, I had “ambition” wrong. I placed it over with things like greed, envy, and selfishness. I still see at least some overlap with these four. What’s changed is my perspective on the possible drive behind it - if good or bad. I’ve learned “good ambition”, and it’s a game changer.

Greed for example, is nearly only a bad thing. Envy and jealousy aren’t great, but perhaps the person is mislabeling their experience, and it’s more in line with awe and desire; they’ve found something they dream to have one day.

With selfishness, I was taught during my whole upbringing that it is evil. Many years later, I started to learn this is wrong. I find room in the possibility that I took these lessons too seriously or too literally, but I can’t be sure. I suspect those that taught me this may in fact believe one should never act selfish. It’s tricky because doing so at the expense of others can be bad, but in my life, it’s led me to behaving like a doormat, and my needs are not met. I wasn’t looking out for me, and that meant that most of the time no one was looking out for me. So, the definition of selfishness has become very gray for me.

Ambition is the latest word to follow in this shifting of my mind. I thought ambition was similar to selfishness in that an ambitious person is shoving aside or ignoring anything that doesn’t serve their goal - full tunnel vision. An ambitious person to me was an extremity, disregarding any usual things in life for one single thing. Moreover, the real single thing I thought any ambitious person was after was money. I could reference several movies here, but this caricature is fairly obvious.

Somewhere in my readings and listening to podcast episodes, a little light came on. This light lit the path in my mind between ambition and drive. Or perhaps ambition and vision. Just from that little bit the difference is apparent. I now have the label, the concept that probably most everyone else has been using the whole time.

I have a stereo in my kitchen so I can listen to my CDs. I have a small and cherished collection. That stereo only holds one disc. Many times, I turn it on and hit play, not bothered with choosing a CD to put in that day. Ambition has been kind of like this for me: same album every day. I have an album chosen and put into the ‘player’ inside me, the background music of the day. Or maybe, more accurately, ambition is the act of choosing that ‘album’. You can pick one that’s saying ‘work on my novel every day’ or ‘learn more JavaScript’ - ones like these will keep you moving toward your goal. When I stick with the same one, that ‘album’ becomes more ingrained in me, easier to remember. That’s the sense of ambition I’ve been having lately, and I think it’s amazing. I’ve changed so much, learned so much, come closer to my goals, all because of these new ‘albums’ I chose to put on!

What have you chosen for your ‘albums’ say to you every day?