Ambition is One Piece of the Puzzle

There is a great lie that has been circulating from generation to generation and from person to person for many years, and this lie has caused misfortune for a countless number of people.

I assume this will be a subject contended by any person who has invested time and money and also an immeasurable series of sacrifices counting on this theory being valid.

But it isn’t valid. As a matter of fact, for anyone who is emotionally involved with it may feel defeated once they realize their belief system is flawed.

The lie I am talking about is, “Go to school, get a good education and you will get a good job.” This of course is not true. The reality is that the streets today are filled with diploma carrying graduates who are homeless, jobless and for all practical circumstances, broken. On the same token there are many multi-millionaires who never or barely graduated from grade school.

I want to clear one thing up. I have nothing against an education and I feel that with appropriate guidance a proper education is the only path to true success. In my humble opinion proper education is a continuing education because all information is constantly changing. You do not need to be in a school setting to get an education. Today, any information you can imagine is free and available to anyone who can use a computer.

That to me makes living today the best time to be alive.

Earl Nightingale defined success as, “The progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” I believe that this is true. One person’s idea of success is definitely not everyone’s.

Eric Hoffer also stated that, “In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” He is also correct. Any worthwhile education is ongoing. Reading material and remembering it long enough to repeat it on a test is not an appropriate method of retaining information. You need to be personally involved with the learning process and emotionally interested in the material in order to retain and continue the education.

If you are not emotionally involved with the material, then, you are not on purpose. Your purpose is what you are born to do. This also brings up another lie, the lie that you can not make a living doing what you love. This is a big lie because you can make more than a good living doing what you love to do. This lie often pushes people to try and educate themselves on a subject that they are not in tune with and this keeps them from being emotionally involved with the material. And to reiterate what I explained earlier you need to be emotionally involved and interested with the material in order to retain and continue the education.

So, how do you know if you are on purpose? Ambition, when you are on purpose to do what you love and what you were born to do, your ambition will get you out of bed in the morning to greet the new day long before your alarm clock does. Ambition is something everyone was born with and this ambition will constantly and continuously push you towards what makes you happy. Most people take the subtle nudge given by their ambition and channel it into a hobby or pastime of some sort, not realizing that they could do it full time as a career or actually study what their ambition nudges them towards. This way you are on purpose with what drives you.

-Brendan