Ambition

What is ambition? Is it a vague idea in the head, comforting in its warm fuzzy ambiguity and lack of any definition? Or is it a blazing light in the distance with fluorescent highway makers leading the way? Is it now, or in a year, maybe ten, or even twenty? Is it pragmatic or fantastical? Achievable or well nigh impossible? Is it supposed to make sense to people or move them into paroxysms of disbelief or admiration? Is it a maddening heady rush or a sober batten-down-the-hatches-and-keep-the-rudder-straight kinda job? Can I live without one? Do I need to have one? If I do, can I have ambition, plural? Or it has to be one overarching all-consuming objective?

I find myself wondering a lot about this these days, simply because there is so much to do, so many things to sweat out and grunt for and see them to the end. Not that I am only one with these things in my head. Almost all of us would be in the same position, where we are constantly juggling priorities  and trying to bring everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Maybe one is of greater import than the other. Then is that my ambition, or just a mundane necessity? And if all of them are equally important, then what? Is everything an ambition then! I might find happiness and contentment while striving towards a goal, or only after achieving that purpose, or maybe never. Is ambition supposed to be responsible for any of this?

What I do know is that I never want to be anonymous. I want my name to be known to a large number of people. But again, hazy concept that, not to mention a sentiment shared by the other 99.999999% of humanity. Nothing special in that. Surely that can't be my ambition. Lots of money....hmm. Nothing novel there either. Fancy cars, bungalows, travelling the world, living the jet set life....all inane and mundane. I want to excel at my job. I do. I always try to be good at what I am doing. But I do that for everything. That's just the way I am. Surely that can't be my ambition.

What is it then? What is my purpose in life? Do I even have one, or I am just going with the flow? I have love, family, writing. No fame or fortune as yet. Need to link these two subsets into something meaningful, a credo if you must. I want to wake up every morning and see blazing letters across the wall in front of me telling me pithily and concisely what I am here on God's green earth for. I want to close my eyes every night with that image burned in my head. I want to live every moment with that thought in my head, wherever I am, whatever I am doing. A bed of nails to lie down on, or a soaring aria to lift my spirit on; whatever shape or form that push comes in I want it. Things might look up after that or not; it is immaterial at this point. People live and die by their faith. This would be mine and hopefully I would be much happier for that.

So as it stands, my ambition at the moment is to find an ambition. Ironical that. All those questions and whats and wherefores have led to this anticlimactic and absurd answer. I hope I am not the only one in the same boat. And now that I am here, I need to get out fast. No time to dawdle.