Ambition: Enemy of Freedom

If someone were to draw up a list of positive and negative qualities, most would put ambition in the positive column. I know this from my own (mixed!) experience of online dating, where a huge number of people list ambition as one of their "green flags".

However, for me, it's the opposite, and I want to explain why. I spent most of my life chasing success. I wanted to achieve, and I was determined to "make it". I was ambitious and driven by a strong sense of purpose. I achieved good grades at school, went to a good university and qualified as a doctor. By most people's measures, I was a higher achiever and a testament to where ambition can take you.

To be ambitious typically means to strive for something, something that you don't have. This could be a job, car, house, family - anything really! It might be less about what and more about who. Your ambition might be to become a version of yourself that is some way better or more acceptable than the person you are now. This might sound reasonable, after all, what's the harm in self-development and self-growth?

The problem is that whenever there is a disparity between what we see and what we want to see, we will feel dissatisfied. We reject what is and wish for things to be different. This non-acceptance of our current reality leads to negative judgements about ourselves and our lives. It is this that commonly fuels the ambition that so many regard as an admirable character trait.

Of course, not everything we work toward is necessarily unhealthy. It can be in our best interest to lose weight, gain an education or make new friends. So how, then, do you know whether you're suffering from toxic ambition? Firstly, it is an ambition that arises not from self-compassion but from negative self-perception, often associated with a deep-rooted belief of not being good enough. Secondly, it tends to be rigid. We believe we "must" achieve/acquire something in order to be [insert a global statement such as happy, successful, valuable, beautiful, respected].

This toxic ambition causes us to suffer because it makes us dislike the person we are now, fearful of failure and leads to disappointment and despair later if we are unable to succeed in the way we want to. This is compounded by the fact that our goalposts tend to constantly shift. No sooner have we achieved one thing, we quickly set ourselves a new goal that we "must" also meet. However, there's only so long we can keep doing this until we over-stretch ourselves and fail to meet our increasingly high expectations. And when this happens, the perceived failure can hit us extremely hard, leading to depression.

This is exactly what happened to me. I pushed myself to my limit and well beyond it. I was desperate to become the doctor I believed I had to be. I kept going until I couldn't take it anymore. I then tasted the bitterness of failure and loss. In Taoism, it is said that "a good traveller has no fixed destination" and that "a wise man succeeds in everything he does because he is unconcerned by the outcome". I spent my twenties being very unwise, clinging to both the destination and the outcome. I was ambitious and I suffered as a result.

Beyond toxic ambition is self-acceptance and an openness to whatever unfolds in life. If there is nothing you have to succeed in, there is no way of failing. If you have nowhere you have to be, you will never find yourself lost. This is why the spiritual path is referred to as an aimless pursuit. It takes you beyond success and failure to a place of non-duality, to a place where ambition serves no purpose.

Are you able to step out of your cage and wander free?