'Ambition' By Any Other Name...

...Is still the same. The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about some of our aspirations, and so forth, for our lives and realized that I no longer had the same annoying knot in my stomach that I used to have when rehearsing all of the different things I wanted to do by age 35. (Maybe because somehow Time has passed me by, and with it went, age 35!) No longer do I suffer from constant tension in the neck from holding myself so tense, wanting to attack every single thing in my life as though it all required the same level of intensity, the same measurement of attention to be paid to it. Fighting every obstacle, opposing every person, place, or thing that chanced to cross my path to accomplishing my intended goal. Even as I write this, admittedly I will say that this is, definitely, not a place that I easily came to. However, it is a place that one can come to only after they have completely and totally burned themselves out. And this, I submit, can sometimes be a "good" thing. The way I figure it is like this: If I were asked to advise a young, energetic upstart on how to make all of their greatest dreams and aspirations come true, I would not tell them to aim high and work some organized plan of action beginning here-and-now to "make it happen, like some fanatical football coach might do. That can be overwhelming to some folks -- especially if he or she is not exactly the most organized, or focused, of individuals. I would simply say, "Pace yourself." And may he or she hear and seek to truly understand exactly what is meant by that. Some of my wisest mentors spoke these very words to me, and it is only now that I am beginning to understand the wisdom of this saying. Ambition is funny: it drives people to do something at the expense of something else. It brings one to the place of always being ready to "compromise" in order to gain something else perceived to be of greater value to the person. You can either burn hard-and-fast or slow-and-longer. Either way you get somewhere. Usually, though, burning hard-and-fast gets you far short of where you intend to go and at too great of a sacrifice (relationships, health, sanity). On the other hand, slow-and-longer buys you a little time to take bite-sized portions of your cake (yes you can have your cake and eat it too!) while steadily approaching your set goals. I think planning in this way is a modified way of showing ambition. It's like firefighting: sure you can be available to put out fires whenever they may happen to break out in the forest, but controlled burning is a technique that has changed the way firefighters approach emergencies forever. Controlled burns, as a concept, gives you just what everyone wants: a little more "control" over the range of disaster that can be created as pertains to your life. No less purposeful; no less ambitious. Just with a more ergonomic feel about it. Embracing the idea of impending chaos -- not self-sabotage. Rather, unexpected acts-of-God that can often lead to clarity of plans, even redirection of plans. Sometimes being purposeful and having ambition is most effectively accomplished by waiting to see and understand exactly what is going on in one's life and taking stock of where he or she stands in relation to his or her self. The value of self-inventory can't be ignored: this is what keeps you more focused on the person, than the process (which sometimes can be convoluted, confusing and not much fun to go through). In the end, it balls down to this: our real ambition is to know and experience true happiness. Its what we all aspire towards.