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.      

Observing the Veil of Time (Part 2)

How ludicrous it is to contemplate that we spend so much of our time preparing to find fulfilment in the future, when it is freely available to us in the present moment. Believing that reaching our goals will make us whole and erase all discontent, we come to depend on time for our striving towards this aim, and ultimate sanity, for how could we truly live with ourselves being so defectively incomplete in this moment. Bound to this broken way of thinking, it is little wonder that we struggle to find peace and nourishment for our soul.

Despite our best hopes, the future cannot save us from the suffering that we experience in the present moment. Having to heal ourselves of the effects that our dysfunctional thinking has produced, it is not work that time, by its nature, can do. Time does not heal all wounds if we refuse to take responsibility for our present moment relationship to previously experienced trauma. By allowing ourselves to be consumed by negativity in the here and now, and feeling helpless to change it, our future will be destined to replicate this morose state of being.

For some time after my father’s death I felt the same sorrow and bitterness that cast a shadow over my life on the day that he passed. Wanting the wound to heal, it was not time’s slow passing that prevented it from happening, but my refusal to process my negative emotions that allowed them to continue to contaminate my present moment experience. Coming to realise this in a moment of introspection, I could start to truly reconcile what had happened and move beyond the grief by being mindful of what my father would have wanted for me.

With my father having learned firsthand how precious every moment is after being told that he only had a few months to live, I would dishonour him and what he had to endure if I stubbornly and selfishly refused to let go and incorporate the same lesson into my life. To fail to do this would have been injurious to his memory and the peace that he made with his own mortality. In circumstances of death (particularly of loved ones) the ego often traps us in our grief where we can’t see past the impacts that the death has had on us personally. This hurt can make us particularly indulgent of our pain and resistant towards healing when that process calls to us to commence. By opposing nature in this refusal to be made whole, we may continue to wear a badge of trauma that can garner sympathy, but at what cost to the quality of our existence?

Releasing that brake eventually, the quality of my life has never been better. Still thinking of him frequently, the memories are fond ones that inspire me to leave a legacy that he would be proud of. By choosing to focus on what I was blessed to have, the unhappiness of the past is conspicuously absent. Having come to terms with the circumstances of his passing, there is nothing about that chapter of my life that I now have to begrudge or regret. Our time in this world is destined to end after all, so why waste it by wishing that things could be different. Better is the world served by our mindful attention to what is unfolding in it now. Taking many different forms, these emergent features call us to first acknowledge their presence without judging and dismissing them instantaneously. This, we can manage within the limited scope of our attentional focus.

Just recently, I attended a mindfulness workshop at the university that I work. One of the exercises that our facilitator had us do was focusing our attention on the open palm of our hand. Instructing us then to slowly move a finger across the palm to witness the intimate connection between mind and body, I felt the presence of my spirit infuse the experience, without interference from the ego telling me that I had better ways to spend my time. Waiting for its intrusion, it thankfully kept its distance while I remained grounded in the purpose of the exercise. Here, I think that my disciplined practice of meditation served me well, by bending open the bars of time to hold a solid space that the ego could not encroach upon.