The Cost of Ambition
Getting to know ambition. Its dangerous darkside, distortions, and dead-ends. Its nature. Its roots.
This essay is part of a Circles in Time series called ‘Seeing Ourselves as Systems’. Subscribe here to get access to future posts.
What is ambition?
I view ambition as a felt sense of movement towards a particular vision of myself or a world, that is better than the one I currently experience.
In other words, an image of the future that the individual feels compelled to pull into the present. To pursue. To achieve. To fulfil. To arrive at something. To become someone.
I know ambition. I am certain you do too.
Ambition is everywhere!
Especially in Western cultures where it is celebrated as being responsible for the perpetual march of progress humanity has made over the centuries. The science, the technology, and all the rest of it.
One could argue that civilisation is a story about ambition.
What would we be without it?
THE DARK SIDE OF AMBITION
Unfortunately, all of our ambition comes at an enormous cost to the individual—a psychological cost. And to our relationships—a social cost.
If one looks closely at ambition, they can see its other side.
The dark side of ambition.
Where there is ambition, there is chasing. There is an excessive occupation with thought. There is comparison—either to others or to oneself. There is competition. There is a hunger for power. Ruthlessness. There is attachment to an image and pain when that image isn’t met. There is motive behind engagement.
And so, with all of this ambition comes deep suffering. Sorrow. Confusion. Frustration. Exhaustion. Bitterness. Anger. Envy. Anxiety. A tragic waste of energy.
A HARD TRUTH ABOUT AMBITION
To be caught in ambition is to live in a dream about the future, constructed with memories from the past, and so disconnected from the present.
The irony is that ambition is a supported (even lauded) escape from what is actually happening, accomplished using the getaway vehicle of thought. A socially acceptable sleeping pill, provided willingly by society.
As someone who identifies strongly with ambition and admires it in others, this was a hard realisation for me.
But without seeing ambition for what it really is, I realise that I will always be in conflict. Conflict with the world. Conflict with myself—a deep self-conflict. A tension between being and becoming. Actuality versus image. Relationship versus instrument.
When there is ambition, there is motive. And when there is motive, there can never be true relationship with anything. There can never be love. I cannot fully see myself or another if my ambition is to change them, no matter how subtle or well-intentioned the change may be. In that sense, ambition is a form of delusion that distorts, poisons and perverts our relationships.
UNTANGLING AMBITION
I am ambitious. I start to see the conflict it creates. The blindness. The self-centeredness. The suffering it causes. What should I do about it?
Perhaps I attempt to discard my worldly ambitions. To let go of my aspirations for prestige. For outward achievement. For success. For legacy.
What happens?
One direction could be to turn inward for answers.
This is a familiar pivot in today’s world.
I start searching for my true self. For peace. For happiness. For love. For equanimity. I join a religion or a conscious community. Maybe I start practicing meditation. Explore new breathing techniques. I attend retreats and make occasional trips to South America for ayahuasca ceremonies. I get chakra readings and participate in chanting rituals. I walk the Camino and spend a month in silence at a Tibetan monastery.
I see myself as a seeker. As someone on a journey of spiritual development.
The problem is that although I have changed direction, my ambition remains. I have just discarded worldly ambition and replaced it with spiritual ambition.
The need to get somewhere remains. The desire to become something remains.
I am not spiritual and I want to be more spiritual. I want to become enlightened. Awake. Be more peaceful. I haven’t yet arrived, and I want to arrive.
Do you see the problem here? The mischief of the human mind.
In attempting to end ambition, all I did was give it a rebrand. I changed the colour of its shirt and sent it back out onto the field.
The roots of ambition remain unchanged. The motive to change is alive in my new found desire to become spiritual.
THE CYNICAL PATH
In seeing the detrimental effects of ambition, I may also try to suppress it. I may develop a bad taste for it. I may deliberately attempt to become unambitious. To rid myself of the whole ordeal.
Perhaps I am able to successfully suppress ambition. What would this look like?
How would I not just be overly content? Satisfied. Even smug, arrogant, dull, depressed and weary. Would I not be less receptive to the world? Less sensitive to inward and outward events.
In any case, this doesn’t get around the fact that I am ambitious, and I am attempting to become someone who is not ambitious. Which, if you look closely, is a subtle form of ambition. The motive to change remains.
Active suppression goes nowhere. Spiritual development goes nowhere. Worldly ambition goes nowhere. They’re dead-ends in the quest to remove ambition.
WHAT AM I TO DO THEN?
Well, I know that it isn’t about deliberately trying to become less ambitious.
To become something implies time. It takes time to become something that I am not. Time implies thought. Identification with thought stops me from seeing things as they are. And without seeing things as they are, what possible chance do I stand in inquiring clearly or understanding the problem fully?
The truth is that I am ambitious. That I am often captured by ambition. That’s the reality. That is the truth of the matter, and that is what I must start with.
All I can possibly do then is be aware of ambition when it arises and stay with it. Watch its movement. Not with any motive to change it. Just to be with it.
Not like an analyst that interrogates an object. No, I need to realise that when the sense of ambition arises, I am the ambition. I am not separate from it. I do this by giving it total unconditional attention.
It is only from this vantage point that I can really be fully aware of ambition’s nature. And to be fully aware of ambition is to not be ambitious.
The feeling of ambition may be present, but I am not caught in it.
When I am completely with ambition, I see its roots. The sense of lack. The gaping hole I am trying to fill. The feeling of not being enough. Of not being worthy or respectable. I see the uncomfortable feelings these thoughts create, and the need to escape them through attainment of certain images in my mind. The belief that particular improvements to myself or the world that will make everything alright.
In seeing the whole shape of ambition, there is inevitable change. Not the flimsy, intentional, envisioned change manufactured by thought. Real change.
It is only in this change that the death of ambition is truly possible.
All we can do is be with ourselves, where we are right now. To observe, very closely, the nature of all things as they arise. Everything else will take care of itself.
Take care,
David
Faggot.
You are God damned scum. You are more dead than if you were dead.