Friend Feed/Dereck
Digg/dacoatne
Facebook/Dereck
YouTube/dacoatne
Del.icio.us/dacoatne
Technorati/dacoatne
MyBlogLog/dacoatne
Twitter/dacoatne
Why ambitious people suffer most
Email this article to a friend
Step one: desires
It is completely natural to want things in life. It is the most fundamental thing about being human. From birth, we are dressed with desire. But at the same time, “wanting things” is a very controversial topic to a lot of people. Our consumerism, greed and satisfaction orgies all seem a little shocking on the one hand, but on the other hand, wanting nothing in life at all seems equally unsettling. One obvious solution is to seek out moderation when confronted with our desires. Temper our natural instincts through the use of reason and self-control. But does moderation ever fail? In my opinion, yes it does. It fails when we moderate our appetites for really noble and good things. What happens when we moderate our passion for personal growth? We are all surrounded by people who have “settled” because they made a decision to accept the safety from the position they have in life instead of the risk that comes from venturing into the unknown and untraveled world of “let’s see what I can do.”
Step two: suffering
All suffering can be generally understood as the distance between what you’ve got and what you want. The greater the distance between the two, the more the suffering. Because of this, the people who want things the most, or who perceive that distance as being the greatest, also suffer the most. Some suffering is unjustified because what some people want in life is simply bad or stupid or silly. A wealthy and arrogant man who “suffers” because he doesn’t get his ass kissed just right in a restaurant probably deserves the finger, no? But other suffering is quite the opposite: the poor, the starving, the parentless, the destitute.
What’s my point?
Something we hear a lot in life is that our private complaints about wanting to reach our goals are not much more than the sniveling whimpers one might hear from rich kids. For Americans for instance, being born and raised in the good ol’ U S of A, we have little right to complain when faced with a world with many people much worse off than we are. And that is true. It’s something we should all be thinking about. But, does that necessarily mean we should not have our private complaints? Does it mean we should reduce the distance between what we have and what we want? Does it mean we should moderate? Gosh, I really don’t want to think so, at least not all the time. The question that should be asked, in my opinion, is this, “Is what you want a really good thing?” Is it something that makes human-being-ness better, shinier, or more proud? Or is it for some stupid handful of French fries? Does it relate to human excellence? If so, I say game on.
If you enjoyed this, you can join the rss feed and be updated about new material. If you don't know what rss feeds are, this article explains them.
3 Responses to “Why ambitious people suffer most”
Leave a Reply
True success is a relative term that can only truly be divined on an individual level. It is about accounting for your personal values and abilities and then living your life in pursuit of the goals that arise - constantly working to achieve and surpass those goals.
If I have the ability to teach thousands and I give in to fear or allow an obstacle to limit me to teaching hundreds I am not truly succeeding. Relative to someone whose values or abilities only allow them to teach 10 I may be viewed as a stunning success but the measuring stick is not of myself against others.
Yes, those of us who were fortunate enough to be born into the kind of relative wealth of a place like the U.S. have much to be thankful for but we also have the ability to accomplish so much more (To whom much has been given, much will be required”).
Couldn’t agree more.
I think it’s important to know what you SHOULD be doing versus what you WANT to be doing.
@Hayden - interesting thought - can you elaborate?