Dream On : Blog # 145

Dream On…

Recently, I came across these lines by John Greenleaf Whittier, “Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these - it might have been…”If we try to remember, we all were very ambitious as children. Not one of us would have had a childhood where we did not aspire for greatness in Life. As and when we grow up, we begin to scale down our ambitions and at some point in Life, we manage to get rid of it completely.  

We find comfort in the routine life of waking up lazily to the sound of alarm to dozing off to the high pitch of a TV or a laptop. We find that it is easier to drift along rather than aim for something which will demand considerable effort.

It takes conviction and confidence in oneself to be ambitious. One needs to believe in oneself to have an aspiration in the first place. I think a lack of assurance towards oneself is one of the reasons why we shed our ambitions somewhere along the journey of Life.

It is true that an ambition can weigh down heavily on oneself. If one were to compare life to a long walk, one with no particular goal will be an easy jay walk with no particular destination to reach. An ambitious one can be akin to one with a long winding road with a specific destination which is more often than not, a summit to be scaled.  

Not everyone is ambitious. One of the reasons is not wanting to go that extra mile. More compelling is the need to avoid heart burn. Through our growing up years, we have learned that it is easier to not wish for and be happy than to yearn for something and not get it. But by doing so, we are completely ruling out the possibility of a better state of being. One might not get what one wishes for but then having made a sincere effort will leave one with a much better sense of self than wondering how different things could have been had I  made an effort!

All through Life, we are in the constant quest of finding a meaning to our existence. At some point in life or the other, all of us would have wondered as to what exactly are we supposed to do with our presence on the face of Earth.The best thing about having an ambition is that it lends some amount of clarity to the conundrum that is Life. Moreover, there are very few qualities which are as appealing as ambition. It might be due to the sense of purpose it brings about to the person. Or is it the vision for Life that it gifts a person with, which makes it so attractive?

Arun Babu.

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