Thoughts from a Pond park | Ambitious vs Overambitious: The ambiguity of having enough

Shoot for the moon. If you miss it, you'll land among the stars.

Yeah, that's a real quote, and a very famous one. I'm not really sure if Norman Vincent knew that the stars are millions of kilometers farther than the moon and, despite it sounding inspirational and beautiful, his quote makes no sense at all. But hey, it's to encourage kids and simple minded people to follow their dreams and be ambitious; to make them subjectively set their goals and objectives and then, tell them to objectively strive to accomplish them.

It's even engraved on our society: as a man, if you're not ambitious enough, women won't look at you as a potential partner and thus, one of your most basic instincts, reproduction, won't be fulfilled.

There's also this little phenomenon that you'll notice if you look closely: once people reach a goal, they automatically set another one more ambitious. Not giving themselves the time to enjoy the previous accomplishment but focusing on keep on rolling, keep growing, keep getting better.

I'm not a philosopher nor a sociologist and I have just a handful of psychology studies and books read, so I'm not going to try to explain this. I have no idea if it's a societal trait we developed as a species in order to keep technological advancements happening; I can't say this happens to improve the species, making the females be more selective while having more ambitious potential mates - which I highly doubt because nowadays it seems that everyone in the genetic pool is able to mate and spread their superb/defective DNA; it would be highly ambitious (get it?) for me to come up with a theory explaining that this phenomenon happens because as human beings, without a sense of purpose, a new set of goals every semester and ultimately something to live for, something to wake up in the mornings for, we would eventually just sit down in a corner and let ourselves grow old and eventually disappear withing the void of a purposeless existence. Nope, I'm not that smart, I would just be trying to go over my head with topics I don't really understand.

But there's one thing I can venture saying: I'm not completely sure it's healthy to be Overambitious.

If you've been reading carefully, a few lines above I just called 99% of the population Overambitious. And maybe you didn't notice I did it, because everything I described above seems completely normal to you.

Why? I have no idea. As I said, I can't begin to understand what's behind our Overambition as a species.

Let me ask you a question.

Where are your own limits? Do you even have limits?

It's like playing roulette in a casino. You have to set a limit of how much money are you going to lose before you stop gambling. At the same time, you must set a maximum of earnings you want before you say enough is enough and you leave the table with your earnings, before you lose them all again.

Everyone knows about the importance of having a losing limit. Most people hadn't heard about how crucial it is to have an earnings limit. Hell, even if they've heard of it, most of them are not able to hold themselves to that self-set limit, because once you're on a good streak, the dopamine and adrenaline released in your brain added to the high levels of cortisol and testosterine tell you that you can keep on winning forever.

Which is not true. Not at all.

And that's just a simple example, I'm not talking about casino earnings on this post. I'm talking about how dangerous it is to be Overambitious and how easily we, as human beings, get dragged into this negative and yet socially embraced circle.

We are considered losers if we stay on the same job position for a long time. We lose our market value if we don't show signs of wanting to constantly improve ourselves. We come off as unintelligent if we have no interest in reading more, studying a second degree or a Masters degree or get into mastering that second or third language everyone else around us speaks.

Someone dedicated to enjoy their current life status is generally considered lazy, especially in first world societies.

It's normal, alarmingly normal, for a person to tell us: Congratulations for this achievement! You deserve it. So... what's next? What follows this accomplishment?.

It's never enough.

I know it wasn't enough for me for decades, I'm just beginning to try to convince myself that sometimes, in some aspects of my life, it's enough.

And most importantly, it's perfectly fine if you think it is enough. And it's ok if you enjoy it instead of trying to get more, and more, and more.

So here I am. Trying to live the present, thinking some thoughts from a Pond Park.