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October 13, 2009

Forget Rubik's Cube. Can you solve the Ambition Cube?

I've been thinking of ambition and I think this thought will not let me sleep until I commit the germ of it to paper - that is, the virtual yellow legal pad of my iPhone Notes app ;).

Ambition. Years ago, I realised that ambition can kill. Not always biological life, but commonly, the life of the soul. And even more commonly, spiritual life. Envy and selfish ambition, said St. Paul, are the environment for all kinds of evil to flourish. And it's true.

At the same time, I believe that I've gone too far in purging myself of selfish ambition, that I've purged all ambition out of myself. This is not healthy either. Lately the thought of ambition has been simmering in my insides again, and I want to state what I consider to be the three characteristics of healthy ambition.

Healthy ambition is: shared, scalable and sustainable. This is the Ambition Cube.

*Shared* ambition benefits more than one. More than a cabal of cronies. Shared ambition benefits the world - that is, anyone that ambition comes in contact with. It can be, to put a computer on every desk. To organise the world's information. To make a personable computer. It can be, to mend children's cleft lips. To help people die with dignity. To provide drinkable water in African villages. These healthy ambitions benefit every person who encounters them - in small ways, big ways, momentous ways, trivial ways. But they bring benefit far beyond the personal enrichment of the ambition's instigator.

*Scalable* ambition works when it's just one person being helped or one million being helped. Mother Theresa started with herself picking up the dying in Calcutta. Then her ambition (we don't usually think of her mission as an ambition, but she was actually a very ambitious lady)  spread to others who joined her, and millions got to feel the touch of love and dignity.

Healthy ambitions scale. If it takes Billy Boy late nights every night to climb halfway up the corporate ladder, it will cost him his wife and kids (and likely his body) to get to the top. I'm not saying climbing ladders is wrong. I'm saying Billy Bob's got himself a bad ladder. 


*Sustainable* ambitions produce - not consume - resources as a net result. Blowing one's life savings on rock climbing is not a healthy ambition. I'm not saying that climbing rocks is bad. I'm saying it has to be sustainable. Perhaps a rock-climbing school that spreads the love of rock climbing as well as brings in revenue to support the passion, is a right idea. That way, it's sustainable, scalable (open more schools) and shared - arguably the most important point.

I used to think in terms of "selfless" ambition, but then I realised that doesn't really hit the spot. What is selfless? Just to avoid being selfish. Still too inward looking. *Shared* ambition gives. It invites. It benefits a tribe of believers. It lives on beyond its instigator.

The Healthy Ambition Cube - Shared, Scalable, Sustainable Ambition.

I invite you to share your thoughts with me on this idea and on your ambitions. Do they resonate with this idea? Is this idea true or a bunch of crap? What do you think?

Now it's out there, maybe it'll let me sleep ;).

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Filed under  //   ambition   Ambition Cube   scalable ambition   sharing life   sustainability   wisdom   work/life  

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October 10, 2009

Sharing - an indicator of a healthy life.

"Build your ghettos and wonder why they try to exterminate you. Build your castles and wonder why they turn their ploughshares into swords against you." 

When I went to Melbourne recently, I noticed how some immigrant communities tended to seek out their own, and kind of huddle together, creating Little Wherevers according to their lands of origin. Certainly, there's honour in remembering your roots. And there's practical support to be had from mingling with people of like culture. But in the context of the larger culture - you need to be more outward facing. 

In the bad old days of genocide (which are today, in some parts of the world, sadly), minority cultures have been exterminated by the dominant cultures surrounding them. (Which are not always larger in number; it's the strength of influence that matters.) 

It's easier to destroy a class or a category of faceless persons. But it's harder to destroy people that you know. So people should not form ghettos, but they should seek to engage and enrich the larger society. Not out of fear of extermination, either, but because it is the divine spark within us than drives us to missional behaviour - to give, to share. 

(Also in Melbourne, I visited the Jewish Holocaust Museum and was reminded again of the people who were forced into ghettos. That's a different story, of course - it was a path they did not choose.) 

Then I was reminded of medieval lords - landowners who literally dominated the peasants. What could people do when the entire economy was built around farming a plot of land - and you owned no land but had to pay hefty taxes, in terms of money and human dignity, to the man whose land you happened to be born on? There were benevolent lords, of course - but you know human nature and the powerful temptation to oppress. (It's very much alive still.) 

What's the natural, logical outcome of a tiny minority living fat and large in comfy castles while the teeming masses around them scratched an existence from the soil? Of course - revolt. 

Sharing - it sounds so kindergarteny. It sounds contrived - but largely, I suspect, because we were forced to share as children; it was the "right" thing to do. But sharing is the normal mode of life. I don't think that the underclass or the upperclass should share out of a hope of avoiding violence done to them. I think that everyone should share because that is the natural thing to do. Revolts are just nature's thermometer telling us that the engine's blown. 

Would you share a little something today? Would you give something that's yours to give? Even if it seems so common to you, it seems common only because you have so much of it. Someone outside of your circle of existence is dying for some. Let your gift find them. 

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Filed under  //   ambition   giving   life   Melbourne 2009   scalable ambition   sharing   spirit   spirituality  

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October 10, 2009

When you know you are loved, fear no longer intimidates you.

"Be yourself." It's one of the hardest things to do. Why? When someone says, "Be yourself!" inevitably, a voice inside us answers, "Who?" 

Sometimes we think we know. And sometimes we actually do know. But most times - too often - we don't know who we are. 

Like a fool driving and using the phone at the same time, our performance and - critically, our performance assessment - are retarded. And so we go through life retarded. Living but never fully alive - but for those magic moments. 

But those magic moments do exist. We crave them. We want them. We need them. We know they are there, dancing behind the veil. Why are they so hard to reach? 

The flight of the butterfly. The light in a child's eyes. The smile of a girl. Precious, fleeting, delicate. So are the things that really matter - that really make life alive. They are as hard to grasp as a dream, because they are dreams. 

Our dreams awaken us to life. Without our dreams, we'd be dead alive. 

Sad is the sight of those who have wilfully sacrificed their dreams to the gods of fear. "Wisdom." "Reality." "Prudence." These are the nice names they give their gods, but their real name is Fear. The many-headed god of fear, loud of bark but toothless in bite. Shame. Ridicule. Failure. Starvation. Poverty. Death. The many heads of the monster. But he has but one heart, and faith born of love pierces it.

When you know you are loved, you have confidence, and fear no longer intimidates you. Sure, its many faces taunt you, but you slap them and carry on. 

Some are born into homes so full of love that this confidence seems built into them. Others - most others - have to find the way for themselves, bumbling from one gutter to another. Until they find the one who has found them. And then they find the way home. 

But it's not so easy, is it? It's not a one-time done deal. It's walking, step by step. Step by step, becoming who we are. With the help of the divine in his many guises as our friends, strangers, enemies. 

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Filed under  //   ambition   fear   household of faith   love   scalable ambition   spirit   spirituality  

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October 2, 2009

Get a scalable ambition or get fried near the top.

Lately, I've been thinking about unsustainable ambition - and its antithesis. 

How high can you climb? How fast? Not too high, and not too fast. "Too", here, is open to individual interpretation. One man's overambition is another man's day job. (Applies to women, too.) 

"Too high, too fast" is determined by whom we might have left behind. Old friends don't know you anymore? Are you a stranger to your kids? Or, been meaning to have kids but don't have the time and money? Worse - do you not know who you are anymore? You've left yourself behind. You've gone too far. Your ambition is no longer sustainable. 

I'm thinking of people who climbed up the ladder on the fuel of ridiculous hours and unquestioning dedication. To continue up that ladder then requires more ridiculous hours and cult-like devotion. (Some companies think this is a good thing. They are led by false messiahs.) How far can these people go before their relationships - and then their bodies - break down? Will the company then swoop in like a white knight and restore them to health and healthy relationships? Or will they be unceremoniously replaced? 

You've got to have ambition. The antithesis of "unsustainable ambition" is not unsustainable lack of ambition. It is scalable ambition. Your ambition must be sustainable. It should promote healthy personal, social, familial, financial growth - success in all areas of your life - at the bottom rungs of the ladder as well as at the in-the-clouds top. Otherwise, you're on the wrong ladder. Have the courage to find another one. Or build another one (see http://alphalim.me/career-are-you-a-ladder-climber-or-are-you-a ). 

Your ambition has to be scalable, or you're going to burn out in a blaze of vainglory somewhere near the top. Entertaining fireworks for the rest of the world. Not so good news for you. That's my concern. 

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Filed under  //   ambition   career   life   productivity   relationships   scalable ambition   success   work   work/life balance  

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