"No! Not Ambitious Enough..!"

Recently, I was drawn into a conversation about Ambition and Ambitious-ness by a parent who was seeking admission for his daughter. The impromptu conversation led me to making statements and some interesting realizations:

- Tangible Vs. Intangible:  Ambition is not something that can be measured tangibly. Nor can we take a preset criteria and announce that X is more ambitious than Y because of A, B and C.

- CXO Vs. Rat Race: Corporate success cannot be the measuring rod for ambition. Can a CXO who wakes up and isn't thrilled about going to work on Monday morning, be called ambitious? Or is s/he just another one in the rat race?

- Happiness Quotient: Can happiness be an ambition? Can a person who is very happy, be considered ambitious? Or is that person the anti-thesis of ambition? Because, by concept, ambition seems to mean striving for something you right now, either don't have, or aren't.

- Family Vs. Career: If a person chooses to be a stay-at-home parent, and is happy about raising a good family, isn't that person ambitious too?

- Head Vs. Heart: What about a wanderer who follows his heart?

- The Buddha Conundrum: And if we return to the typical definition of ambition, wouldn't we classify Buddha as an unambitious escapist, who left the palace and kingship for the woods and solitude?

Defining ambition is an awkward attempt, at best. I think its best that we not try to define it for others, nor let others define it for the self. Let each of us decide our own life paths and what we will consider as a life well lived. And that, is ambitious enough.