Dreams and Ambitions: A Human Formality
The
Journal of Applied Psychology (Vol. 97 is. 4) to be paraphrased has verified
the research I didn’t want to be verified. “Ambition is a commonly mentioned
but poorly understood concept in social science research.” Ambition runs through our blood streams and
zaps into our brains faster than a penny falls. It is what sets us aside from
bodies to humans, sets us into the running race with our multiple selves. I
don’t mean carbon-copied bodies of the same cluster of freckles on our noses, or the one
eyebrow that still flicks away from the grain. I mean the multiple people we
could be: the doctors or the entertainers, the law enforcers or the zoo
keepers, the baristas or the science researchers or the rushing suits in the
veins of every metropolis or the designers trendier than I’ll ever be.
Ambition is such a monumental part of my life
right now, it’s why I left everything I knew to move oceans away, it’s the
basis of everything I do everyday and in the back of my head with every
sentence I speak. Only I’m not sure what I aspire for. For far too long I’ve
been waiting for this metaphorical ‘calling’ or a white light or some miracle
to meet me at my doorstep and solve this existential crisis then I’ll be ready
to ship myself home. Yet there are so many factors wrong with that
sentence. It’s all bullshit, plain and
simple. Life just doesn’t work like that; sure some people luck out with such a
sense of grounding at a young age or have an ideal worked into their brains
since the day they could talk. Or maybe callings and white lights and miracles
do happen and I’m just cynical, but to me right now the word ‘No’ is screaming
over in my head.
July 2014.
July saw three weeks of backpacking through my
home country; jumping off bridges and quad biking through forests and paddling
over river water so clear it glimmered. July was when I had that awakening
thought of what I really want to do with my life, am I really cut out for where
I’m going? I sure wasn’t enjoying classes as much as I should have.
Nevertheless I tried three more weeks when the semester went back with these
thoughts running through my head and managing to scribble onto my notepaper and
I decided that I needed to pause. I needed to just stop the clock for a bit and
figure this all out. Maybe work some
minimum wage jobs and some not-so minimum wage jobs and travel the world some
more. Hence why Plateau was penned a few months back.
It has since been a year and my life has moved
so fast in 12 months that I think I finally have a grasp at understanding why
life moves as it does; and why ambition, motivation, and inspiration are so
hard to not only achieve but to also maintain. It’s contradictory to me now,
come twelve months later, that though I have I have grown with new influencers
and conversations I never thought I would have, I find myself without that
calling but knowing that I am ready to chase the same ambitions before the
clock paused.
For me now, ambition is not only a formality of
human nature, but also a concept; a chapter in my life the novel. A pursuit of
understanding, a pursuit of guidance, it is a pursuit of closure to open the
next chapter. Twelve months and I have a lot of feelings. Twelve months and
though a light, or a calling, or a miracle is still absent and although I am
still skeptical, I remain hopeful that it isn't really all bullshit.
Always, em.
