Why Are Some People More Ambition Than Others?

[John_Taylor]

Why are some people...well...want to take over the world while others....well I don't say anything condescending :nono: . But yah, why?

*Ambitious (how do you change the title lol)....

 

[FairShake]

Whatever makes me (or them) happy I guess.

The only ambition I have is to live a happy life, have a good time, and help a few people who come into my orbit have a better life. I'll leave taking over the world to the people who have the ego to run it.

 

[STR8UP]

Men are hard wired to want to take on the world. Some just a little less than others.

I have always had this autopilot mechanism that pushes me toward building businesses and working with money in general. Started when I was barely out of high school. Matter of fact, I remember being 15 years old bussing tables, telling people that I wanted to own a business.

I don't know where it comes from. I suppose I get a little of it from my dad. At least the "independent spirit" part. Other than that I am really the only one in my entire extended family that has ever really been this way.

 

[L B]

I'm with FairShake on this one. You do whatever makes your life worth living. I was a lot more ambitious with my career several years ago. I learned that there's more to life than just a career, so now I focus more on improving myself (health wise) and the relationships I have with my family and friends. Find what makes you happy and go do it.

 

[Zunder]

Most people of western origin equate ambition with career or sports.

This is due mainly to civilisation.

Pre-civilisation, mans ambition was where to find the next meal, or which biitch to club on the head and drag off to his cave.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

I don't wanna respond to a thread that spelled ambitious ambition.

All your ambition are belong to us

 

[John_Taylor]

I don't wanna respond to a thread that spelled ambitious ambition.

Only an idiot would .
Kidding...

 

[insidious]

John Taylor, this is an excellent subject man.
It is a question, an elemental what-if that is a preamble to all this Don Juan dogma.

What is ambition? How does a man define his life and how does he explain its boundaries? What defines "success" and better yet, who defines success?

If you're Sr8up it's income and long term assets and all the ingredients of modern social and financial excesses. If you're FairShake, success is an internalized trait with no concern for society's definition.

As you can tell from my tone, I fall into FairShake's school of thought.

For me, success is freedom. But once again, the definition is fluid.

For Str8up, "freedom" is income. For FairShake, I imagine it's much like my own defintion...lack of ties, lack of debt, lack of commitment.

This so-called "independent spirit" as far as I'm concerned is the antithesis to consumerism and image-conciousness. Independent spirits have no urge to be burdened with income and bills and relationships.

I work with people blindly herding to buy houses and cars and pets and have more and more children. Dude, that is not what I want. If that's "ambition" , yep, I don't have it!

 

[Da Realist]

I think a lot of it comes from the environment a person grew up in. They either have it pushed on them that they are destined to achieve something, fighting against some type of lack, getting revenge for something, or just have the right mind set in favorable circumstances. Look at Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Osman, Shaka Zulu, William Wallace, and the Founding Fathers. They all fall somewhere in that group.

 

[FairShake]

For FairShake, I imagine it's much like my own defintion...lack of ties, lack of debt, lack of commitment.

Whoa, I wouldn't go that far.

I am committed to my family, my friends, my music, my girlfriend if I have one. I WAS committed to my wife.

But I'm not committed to the rat race. I work as a nurse, make decent money, but also spend alot of time having fun. Whether it be drinking, riding bikes, playing music with friends, basketball, whatever.

I work to live, not live to work. I think that sums it up best.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

you can either be as ambitious as your history and natural orientation allows, which is what most people do. Consequently, most people are content to watch crap TV, spend time whining on crap internet forums, and shove down handful after handful of crap food, and then tell themselves they are "happy" because nobody is holding a gun to their head, and they can manage to pay their bills every month, and their fat wife allows them to have sex once a month.

OR, you take specific steps to increase your ambition, and design the life that you want.

Think and Grow Rich is a great resource for this, specifically the chapter on sexual transmutation.

Those of you who have set some solid, medium term goals (six months to a year), and then stretched your comfort zone to achieve them know that once you get a taste of what its like to pursue a worthy goal, you can never go back to the couch and the TV.

Ambition is a skill like any other. To get more of it, you gotta practice it.

 

[FairShake]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living

I'm not saying that I jibe with this completely, but I do prefer the simpler life. Simpler than what we are taught to strive for anyway.