Quick browser search: “Example of an ambitious person”. Alexander the Great, Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey - all names that come up within a click. The Western corporate, political, and academic cultures have done an excellent job of packaging ambition as “the lifeblood of human achievement” (The Arc of Ambition by James Champy and Nitin Nohria). While the term undoubtedly echoes power, dedication, and passion in our mind, an intuitive “harshness” of it follows along.
Similarly to most terms used to describe contextually layered phenomena of one’s consciousness, ambition holds an ambiguous quality. “The desire or strength of mind to be successful, rich, powerful” - the definition that The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary provides us with. Now, what is this mysterious strength of mind mentioned above? It’s unlikely that the central concept of our discussion is the electrical activity of the brain we are able to measure and assess. Whilst some neural events do correlate with the wider notion of ambition, the subject is rich with external characteristics, occurring on a social level. Hard work, confidence, bravery, and invention - notions that feed into the broader account of ambition, are all qualities of social praise and status, thus moral value. What may be derived from that is the understanding of ambition as a public display, a bold statement. A trope of a tortured journey to success, through external disbelief and disapproval, certain recklessness and inflexibility, wholeheartedly putting oneself on the line for the sake of the desired goal, those are some recognisable elements of the ambitious character.
The outcome-oriented set of mind is a significant attribute of the current professional, consumerist, and academic climates. The learning one does is specifically curated for tangible achievement (e.g. a high score, dream physical form), a similar storyline can be traced in the case of products one purchases, and work tasks one completes. Ambition as we know it fits perfectly within that framework. It acquires a parallel understanding to sacrifice and even neglect, flaws that we also observe in the current productivity culture. When the focus is on the goal the process is taken into lesser regard. Ambition in many of its manifestations implies a level of obsessivity, a tunnel vision. That might include neglecting one’s mental, emotional and even physical needs contributing to a balanced lifestyle.
The quality of “harshness” discussed earlier, comes from the inconsiderate aspect of ambition, whether it would be towards oneself or those around. After all the “cold” success we see all across human civilization resulting from “stepping on people’s heads” is commonly associated with ambition. The inflexibility aligned with that very tunnel vision leaves little room for granting oneself grace. The extremes ambition takes on may be analysed as harmful, and not only that but also counterproductive.
It is no news that a fruitful journey requires balance. That balance, particularly in light of this conversation, is found by considering both the process and the outcome equally. Flexibility and sensitivity ought to be understood as elements of dedication rather than the antithesis of it.