Ambitious

Every word has an essence. A meaning. A feeling. An emotion. A whole situation can at times be summed up in the power of just a few alphabets. Like a seed with the power of becoming a tree, like a shell encompassing million years old secrets, it is by far, one of the most intricate yet the simplest ways of defining a past, a present, a future.

One such word is Ambition. From a child whose ambition might be to become an astronaut; to a fresh graduate whose ambition might be to conquer the corporate world.
From a model who aspires to become Miss Universe to a cook who wants to open up a restaurant.

Ambition is the word that has empowered thousands of ideas. It has led to an inception of a dream in the mind, it has brought life to otherwise dead matter of the brain. The word has the magic of letting the humans achieve the unimaginable.

And in the midst of all this, the humans have yet again distorted its true meaning. With a word so magical and powerful, we have failed to do justice to its essence. It has become a mere adjective placed next to conventional dreams scribbled on a typical personal statement of a undergraduate. It has become the most widely used word thrown on the resumes mercilessly and tossed around projects in the board rooms.

And recently, it has experienced a traumatising exploitation behind the closed doors of young couples' bedrooms. It has been picked up by "Educated/liberated/career oriented" women to acquire "equality" with the opposite gender; to fight for "justice"; to fight for "freedom"; suddenly, the liberated educated women have awakened to the fact that they did not acquire education to give up their fancy careers and sit at home. Suddenly, they have realized they can equally be "Ambitious".

The problem of wrongly defining "Ambition" starts early in the childhood. Gone are the times when children wanted to be astronauts and doctors and engineers. Today, they want to be "Corporate Kings" with big flashy cars/bags/clothes (insert brands). Ambition has been substituted with a plaque which has already taken over the world.

The so-called ambitious child of today aggressively fights to acquire straight A's. Passionately competes to join the best graduate school. And once a graduate, he auctions his brain out to the best buyer in the market. For good 10 years, he is misguided in the name of Ambition. What he is seeking is materialistic possession.
His dreams can be described as aggressive but not as Ambitious.

- If you're ambitious, the graduate school should expand your vision. Your best management school should teach you the ability to become a management leader of your family as well.

- If you're ambitious, your journey should expand your horizons beyond just connecting ambitions to acquiring flashy cars and jobs.

- If you're ambitious, your exposure should make you realize your connectivity with the world is just a click away. You can put your innovation to practice. Be it googling British breakfast recipes to Chicken Aalo Qeema to blogging online.

- If you're ambitious, there are bigger things that should matter to you. If your ambitions are not helping raise ego-free, humble, wise, hard working, educated human beings then know well..the definition of Ambition needs to be corrected.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with passionately dreaming, enthusiastically striving, attending the best educational institutes and securing the best of the best jobs.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the above Only If our definition of Ambition is Bigger than that. If the above is limiting our growth as a Human, limiting our potential to a mere animal instinct then it is nothing but our distorted version of Ambition.

Most importantly, if our education and graduation is limiting us to just progressing aggressively in our career then know well, we've been fooled into wrongly defining Ambition for ourselves.