On Ambition

This has been my experience with ambition

When you decide you want to do something

There are people all around you saying—

Do whatever you have to do

To get that thing you want

If you don’t do whatever it takes

Somebody else will

And they’ll get the thing you want

So you start out to get what you want

And you think, Okay, so I just need to work hard

And eventually, I’ll get the thing

But what you don’t count on

Is that sometimes it isn’t about

Who works hard and who doesn’t
Even though most people work hard

And a lot of people seem to be working harder

Than you could ever work

What you don’t count on

Is that sometimes the obstacle in front of you

Isn’t the work you’re going to have to do

But something else

Something moral or political

A choice you have to make

That goes against what you believe in

Or what you think is the right thing to do

But there’s a sign in front of that choice saying—

If you don’t do this

You stop here

No going any further

No getting what you want

And as you’re standing there

You see people coming up behind you

Looking at the same sign you’re looking at

And going forward

And yes, you see other people look at the sign

Decide not to keep going

Then turn around

But those people look so sad

So dejected

They look like people

Who are going to have a lot of regrets someday

A few of them even say to you—

‘You should do it.  I can’t, but you should.

Go ahead.  I won’t judge you for it’

So you do it

And then another sign pops up

And then another, and then another

And at that point, you’re like—

Well, I didn’t come this far

To turn around now

So you just keep going past the signs

And you still see other people going past the signs

Which makes you think to yourself

Well, I can’t have done anything that bad

Otherwise why would all these other people

Be right alongside me?

Then finally you see it

That thing you want

(We could call it the finish line, but I’m really trying to play down the race analogy here)

So you get it

You get the thing you want

And the second you do

You see all these people around you

That you’ve never seen before

Questioning how you got that thing you wanted

What you had to do

If you made some unconscionable choices

Or did some things they wouldn’t have done

That’s what they keep saying too

‘Well, I wouldn’t have done that’

And you think—

Well, how do you know what you would have done?

I didn’t see you running next to me

But then you look at the people running next to you

Who also have the thing they want

And some of them lie and say they didn’t run past the signs

Some say they took another way

A shortcut you didn’t know about

And maybe they did

Maybe there was a shortcut

But they sure as hell didn’t tell you about it

So you’re standing there with the thing you wanted

The thing everybody encouraged you to go get

And you’re wondering where those people are

Who were at the beginning of all this

Those people who told you to go for it

To do whatever you had to do

You can’t find them anywhere

Okay, maybe you find one of them

And they look at you with disgust and say—

‘Well, I didn’t think you were going to do THAT.’

But then again, they didn’t have to go after what you wanted

So how would they have known what you would have to do?
Maybe they shouldn’t have encouraged you in the first place

So here’s what I take from all this:

Don’t pay attention to the people at the finish line

Or the end

Or whatever

Don’t pay attention to the other people

Who were running with you

Don’t even pay attention to the people

Who encouraged you

Once you’ve already made up your mind

To go after what you want

Do what you have to do

And don’t ever let anybody

Make you feel bad about it

The thing about ambition

Is that there are two sides to it

Two challenges

The first is being able to use it to achieve things
The second is to not be ashamed of it

When a lot of people want you to be

Because they’re jealous
Because they’re judgmental

Because a lot of them are either hypocrites
Or too lazy to go after anything themselves

It doesn’t matter

Don’t listen to them

Not just because of all the reasons I just listed

But because it’ll change the way you think about your own success

It’ll tarnish it

And that’s exactly what they want

They want that because then you’ll stop trying

To be successful at anything else

You’ll stop going after what you want

And that’ll make it easier for them

So be proud

Say—“Yeah, I did all that

Because that was what I needed to do”

It’s a little Dr. Seuss-y

But it still works

If you screwed up along the way

You can apologize for that

But don’t apologize for wanting things
Working hard

And walking past those signs

People love to blame the people who walk past the signs
But they never ask who put the signs up in the first place

Just take the thing you wanted

And keep running