Interlude: Putting Ambition and Motivation in their Proper Place

My intention with this piece is to challenge some of the commonly held conceptions about ambition and motivation. In the fields of leadership, psychology and personal development, these notions are held up as virtues to embody if one is to enjoy ultimate success, but in the description of how they may affect this outcome I believe a great substance is lacking. While some, who are more egocentrically inclined, think that they represent the ideal, I believe there are more potent and rewarding ways to orient ourselves in the world. With this, I offer some thoughts below about what distinguishes ambition from aspiration and motivation from inspiration. On the face of it, these terms appear to be interchangeable with each other but in their character they have differences that go beyond the semantic.

Ambition: This is what you want to achieve in the world, but who is the ‘you’ that is animating this drive for accomplishment? If we are honest in looking at the part of us from which ambition emanates, we will find ego at the centre of it. The proof of this is that much of our ambition revolves around the gratification of our personal and subjectively defined desires. We might want status, influence, the corner office, money and other material accruements, so we expend energy to bring these things to ourselves which enriches or strengthens our sense of self. The ‘goals’ we set ourselves are a means to these ends, even though we may rationalise that they are an end in their own right. It should be no surprise then that as we attain them, they feel unfulfilling because as we undertook the journey our doing was divorced from authentic being. The outlet for this ambition is most often a career. Of itself, it is not bad, especially if we achieve some positive things for others and the world along the way. It also beats having no drive to action or contribution beyond ourselves. We just need to realise its limitations and deficiencies relative to what aspirations involve.    

Aspiration: This is the basis of what animates a calling or vocation. It is what yearns to be affected through you. This makes it different than a goal in that it is not ego directed. An aspiration is something that you can’t not do if you are to breathe into life, and life is to breathe into you. This is literally the definition of what it means to aspire: the action or process of drawing breath. No coincidence! On this path, the journey to becoming is itself the reward, for who we truly are (our spirit) is given permission to animate our being and guide our action as we traverse the territory that is uniquely ours to take. Through affecting this integrity between being and doing, we find fulfilment within ourselves, beyond the lukewarm satisfaction that is the best of what ambition can hope to deliver. Aspiration bridges who we are now in this moment, with who we could be in the future, so this actualising pull is a key feature of what animates us as we move forward in our lives. Whatever material rewards we may accrue along this path are given their proper place and paradoxically, we often become better at bringing them to ourselves when we are inspired by a deeper purpose and its attendant feelings of love and passion for what we do. 

Motivation: The animating force behind motivation is in the word: motive. This motive is the reason why we affect a particular form of action. The implication of even having a motive is that there is an end in mind that we are seeking to realise. For what purposes though, and what part of us is being driven towards those ends? When we hear of people being extrinsically motivated, it is typically the same things that rouse our ambition which are sought to be captured from the world, money and power etc. Clearly, it is ego that is consuming us when we are so motivated, moving us outside of ourselves to bring back the objects that we perceive ourselves as lacking: counterfeit treasures. Intrinsic motivation is a different beast altogether and despite its reputation as a benevolent driver, I believe that often it is the same force of ego that animates this form of striving. We might be intrinsically motivated to find happiness because we want to feel good in the moment, and this can lead us to justify hedonic pleasure seeking as the means of accomplishing this. Others might rationalise the desire for financial independence, or doing good to appear virtuous, in similar ways. But what internal deficits or fears born of not having or being enough, do the meeting of these ends really work to assuage?

Inspiration: Is the best of what motivation hopes to be. When we are inspired, we are being animated and oriented by spirit. It is in the word: in-spir(it)ed. In contrast to motivation, which sees us force ourselves on the working of the world, when we are inspired, we ease into the flow of life to enact the virtues that are our essential nature and the purposes that constitute our calling or vocation. The highest vision of what humanity is capable of achieving is realised in this state. The best forms of art testify to this reality. What was animating the artist in the process of bringing those masterpieces to life? Were they motivated to make them happen, for fame, acclaim or wealth? No. Were they to even force the issue would guarantee a sub-standard outcome. Inspiration is allowing something much greater than you to work through you. This is what makes the fruits of inspiration beautiful, awe-inspiring and engenders them with the ultimate value. It also explains the attractive force (or charisma) which those who allow themselves to be animated by it have. The idols of the world are inspired agents and yet in our unconsciousness we are clueless as to why we place them on a pedestal. Could their embodiment of this ideal be why they are worthy of our attention and worship? When we become conscious of the true source of their standing, it becomes clear that we should answer that question in the affirmative.      

I Feel, Therefore I Am (Part 3)

This also helps to explain why our search for happiness always proves elusive. Happiness after all is a feeling that comes and goes like any other emotion. Being not something that we can achieve as an end state, its arrival is ultimately contingent upon us creating the conditions for it to visit our heart. This comes back to aligning with the spiritual consciousness of life from which we enact virtue, and receive back the fruits of this offering, of which deep joy is one. How we don’t find happiness is by focusing on finding happiness (a paradox I know!), and being too concerned with our emotional life in this way is counterproductive. Many a self-help book about happiness makes this mistake in advocating for its readers to chase the emotion as if this will paper over all of the sources of dissatisfaction that have lead them to pick up the book in the first place.

As alluring as a lasting form of happiness is as a prospect, ultimately it will lead to disillusionment. Being only a promise of a short term fix, it can’t or won’t sustain us for long because we haven’t done the fundamental work of connecting to our spirit as the source of flourishing in our lives. You may have noticed before that I referenced deep joy as one of the fruits of this integral aligning. In contrast to the fleetingness of happiness, this joy is more permanent in its presence because it originates in being. Transcending our capacity to identify with in this respect, it is not something that we need to search for in order to attain, or do, in order to achieve. If this joy does come to infuse our heart, it will be as a by-product of action that is properly oriented towards a spiritually actualised life.

Rightly understood, what I have communicated above is liberating, and in bringing about this higher form of life for ourselves and the world, we have much leverage at our fingertips. In any moment, we can pick the fruit of temporary satisfaction, or commit ourselves to becoming one with the source of life that takes the form of a tree from which enduring fruit is borne. When we desire positive thoughts, experiences or feelings (like happiness), we can pick a piece of fruit from the tree of life and this will serve a transitory purpose. It may nourish us and make us feel good for a moment, or season, as we consume it. But not long after eating it, we will feel deficient and yearn for more, not least because of the dependence that we have placed on it as a means of fulfilment that it can never deliver. This metaphorical fruit can be anything we desire for satisfaction, and in its most tempting forms can resemble the substances that we become addicted to. Regardless of whether we choose to indulge those titillating substances, we now have a routine for our life as the habituated consumer. While we may long to feel sustained in this consumption, all we end up feeling as we repeatedly search and reach, pick and eat, is drained and defeated.

But just as our other emotions don’t ultimately define us, neither does this languishing feeling of fatigue. Within that broken down state, we are perhaps more capable of recognising how distorted our way of relating to the world has been. As we remain receptive in openness, we are taught of a better way to be, like the tree itself, rooted in its naturalness and inherent purpose. By becoming that tree, we find ourselves capable of offering to the world an abundance of fruit that isn’t limited to promises of happiness alone. When we are aligned with the presence of spirit within, joy is but one feature that comes to characterise our existence.

Again paradoxically, in this space, the swelling of joy in our hearts is the extended outcome of moving to offer those fruits to others. As we embody love, compassion, partake in service and provide hope to others, among many other manifestations of the virtues that I write so much about in my entries, our being expands to encompass the positive impacts that we are having on others. Being what fertilises the soil where our tree is nested, this is the inverse of lecherously looking to the world for what we believe (in tenuous thought) will make us happy and whole. Here, we need to untether ourselves from our materialist view of the world and the hedonistic escapism that it leads to, which favours the sense making of the external above the spiritual nurturing of the internal dimensions of being. Regardless of how you may think or feel about this proposition, it is inevitably true, as anyone who has ever searched their soul for what is of genuine substance and meaning can attest.  

Born To Do This S*#t

What is it that you were born to do? If you haven’t already connected to this truth within yourself, I would say that your primary task in life is to find the answer to this question. Above all else, this is your calling to clarity. While the busyness of everyday life can be addictive, and the hedonistic pleasures that we constantly seek out, intoxicating, when we remain disconnected from our spiritual purpose, these pleasures are hollow and thus incapable of filling the internal void that we experience as a consequence of not having done this critical self-exploration at an earlier time in our lives.

The title of this entry was inspired by NBA basketball star Derrick Rose after I watched him hit a game winning basket for the Detroit Pistons last week. Being questioned by a reporter after the game as to what he was feeling on the final possession with the game on the line and the ball in his hands, Rose coolly laughed before reciting this phrase that speaks so clearly to what he knows his purpose to be. There was no doubt, no fear, only conviction. His life’s choices that aligned with his calling had led him to that moment and he had nothing to lose, even if he missed that shot.

If you don’t know the story of Derrick Rose, it is one that is charactered by tremendous hardship, resilience and perseverance. The youngest ever Most Valuable Player in NBA history, his meteoric rise to the top of the sport saw him crash back down to earth just as quickly when he suffered a series of devastating injuries that robbed him of his elite abilities. Despite not being the same superstar that he once was, Rose’s love for the game has kept him dedicated to the craft and playing at a very high level. While many other athletes who were faced with the same adversity would have pulled the pin on their careers, Rose’s journey and the lessons he learned in the fire wouldn’t allow him to succumb to that fate. Clearly, he couldn’t not do what he was born to do. Remember, he was born for this shit! Just like an artist or musician never really retires from engaging in their vocation, I am sure that Derrick Rose will be playing basketball for years to come, with his kids and his friends, for the excited anticipation and intrinsic joy that he derives by lacing up his sneakers and hooping.

What Derrick Rose has, and all people who live their calling have, is more than confidence or self-belief. They have a knowing of who they are and what connects them to the world, and this unshakably grounds them in service and the application of their gifts. They are masters in waiting who revel in the journey to unfolding their potential, and do not want to be anyone else or have what anyone else has. Confidence, while useful in excelling in any worthwhile endeavour, is laced with insecurities that are hidden in the depths of our unconscious mind. This is why it so often comes and goes, depending on the external conditions that we are confronted with. Conviction of purpose, on the other hand, is a holistic state of being. We feel it in our body, mind and heart, and by our surrendering to its spiritual source we become impervious agents of God’s creative and life-giving potential. To embody this state is to understand the wisdom which teaches that whatever our calling is, we have been born with the means of its fulfilment. It is already in us. We need nothing else. Hence, the conviction that becomes us.

American writer Mark Twain once remarked that “the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”. This past Saturday was my 41st birthday, and it was a glorious day spent mostly with my daughter watching the new Frozen 2 movie, which was apt considering that its predominant theme was responding to the call of your spirit and by so doing finding your true source of strength and wholeness. In reflecting on the anniversary of this first most important day, I can with gratitude say that I have experienced this second most important day and connected with my calling, or reason for being.

What I, Derrick Rose and Elsa, the snow queen, have found, you can also. But this starts with a question that only you can ask of yourself. If fear and apprehension rises up in you at the prospect of clarifying this truth, you are on the right track. These negative emotions are just the ego’s way of deterring you from taking the first steps that will lead to the diminishing of the control that it has wielded over your life to this point. Move past this false protective reaction and don’t recoil despite the urge to. This is new territory. The real landscape of life, love and all good things that is yearning to be experienced by those who have awoken.

What I respect about Rose’s immediate response to hitting the shot that won the game was the calm and restraint that he exhibited. Out of all of his teammates, he was the one who wasn’t jumping around and celebrating the feat. Just a few subdued fist pumps moments later to acknowledge his meeting of destiny’s challenge in that moment. He didn’t need to mock his opponent, seek adulation, or receive a hug from his coach to pump up the psychological tires of his confidence. He is above that. He has conviction. He was born for this shit.

Falling Towards Home (Part 4)

To break free of these suspect influences and the temptations that they bring, one must rehabilitate themselves, or reorient their lives in a way where they are no longer dependent on those people or substances for their functioning. Winehouse appeared to be conscious of this needed intervention, which she sung about in her 2006 hit ‘Rehab’, but as she expresses in the lyrics of that song, she was resistant to receiving that help and didn’t want to go. As toxic as her life had become, her ego didn’t want to give up the good time, which can be understood when looked at through a hedonistic lens. Just as Icarus was blinded to the melting of the wax that held the feathers of his wings in place, by the sense of rapture that he was caught up in as he ascended towards the sun, so was Winehouse blinded to the means of grace that would have brought her new life.

Any act of healing or becoming well requires one to surrender themselves to the source of life from which they find their being. Constituting an act of grace that invites this spiritual intervention to guide our lives, it is what the recovery movement has long recognised as being a necessary step for one to break free from an addiction and effect a personal transformation that allows them to grow into the person that they were born to become. Steps two and three of the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program, which has formed the basis of other successful recovery programs for other forms of addiction, involve coming to believe that a power greater than the addicted person can restore them to sanity, and making a decision to turn their will and their lives over to the care of this infinite power (whether it is understood as God or spirit).

Part of the problem with addiction comes from the addict’s erroneous belief that they themselves, or their ego constructed identity, can solve the problem of their addiction and restore them to health and wellness. When properly considered, this is an insane proposition, for the source of a problem left unchanged can never present the means of the problem’s solution. As I have expressed previously with reference to the dilemma in which Icarus found himself in, the ego is in fact the source of the problems that we found ourselves in, and being self-concerned with perpetuating its own identity and agenda, it will never afford us the freedom to align our being with something real that promises hope of a new and better life. This is why feelings of hopelessness are an entrenched feature of an addict’s inner landscape. Having allowed themselves to be totally consumed by ego in the pursuit of their ‘fix’, this base of dysfunction is all that they can see and relate to.

For a breakthrough to occur, a new relationship has to be established with the dimension of self that these programs recognise bring healing to our hearts and minds. Being our spirit, the path to forming a relationship with this divine part of ourselves can only be initiated once we breakdown our ego defences that have us wrongly believe that we have it all figured out. Despite the negative connotations that our culture typically attaches to ‘breaking down’ or experiencing a ‘breakdown’, these occurrences can often precipitate transformational growth in our lives by presenting an opportunity to disassociate from the ego and surrender ourselves spiritually to the grace which does good and makes a good life possible.

How I have experienced this breaking down is as a gradual process that has allowed me over many years to slowly integrate the parts of myself that were broken by my adhering to the misunderstandings of my ego, and the wounds of life that I had experienced, such as the loss of my father in my teenage years. While some experience this breaking down as a crash that impacts them suddenly after many years of subtle jabs from their abused spirit, I think that why I experienced this incrementally was because at a certain point in my life, I made a commitment to living in truth and growing in its light, as painful as that might have been with the artificial reference points from which I defined myself at the time. In this sense, my surrender was conscious and voluntary, and while my ego is still undoubtedly active in my life, its presence isn’t pervasive enough to allow it to hijack my orienting intention to live a spirit-centred life.