The Triple Faces of Ambition
Breaking the Ice
“…and
remember, punctuality is the soul of
business”, were the last words of the Managing Director of 2go group of
companies, which was equally the last words that McDonald heard in his head that
night before sleep defeated him. “…and
remember, punctuality is the soul of
business”, he dozed off.
…his hands could not at the first instance
reach the unnerving mammoth alarm clock that had been ringing for the past 13 minutes.
He cursed the day he bought that alarm. For the second time though, he tried,
and this time around with an effort more calculated. He meant to silence that
distracting morning demon. Ah aah aaahh, his hands reached it at last and
presto, the alarm was killed. “Idiot” was all he could say before he went back
to sleep. “Idiot!” He cursed the alarm once again, even though he was the very
person who set it the previous night to wake him up because he actually
wouldn’t want to mess his first day at his new job which made him buy that
mammoth alarm clock. But he was just happy to silence it during its very first
assignment that morning. Grrr grrrrr grrrrrrr grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the alarm
began again and this time around, with the anger of a bee determined to sting
to death its intruder. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, McDonald jumped up. Time was 7. 21am, Monday
morning. He hit the alarm one more time and wanted to get back to sleep, but
then the unstoppable inner alarm took over “…and
remember, punctuality is the soul of business”. “…and remember, punctuality is the soul of business”, “…and remember,
punctuality is the soul of business”, “…and remember, punctuality is the soul
of business”, “…and remember, punctuality …” Now he didn’t even remember
the usual order of waking up again. He jumped into the kitchen, had a cold, sauer
breakfast, then remembered that he had not taken his bath, did it in a jiffy,
put on his tie even before recognizing that it was on a bare body. Aaaahhhhhhh!!!
“Idiot”, now he had to call himself that.
Removed the tie again, put on the shirt, shoes without socks, was about rushing
out of the door before …bang!!! He didn´t brush his teeth. Pause!!! Then he
went back to really wake himself up properly. Unfortunately for him, the last
bus of the hour had gone by before he could finish. Stranded on the road, he
decided to do the lunatic undone. Sighting an oncoming Peugeot car, he decided
to play a quick one. Dispossessed the owner of it, and made away. And thus, his
day’s programs spread out. He can’t simply ruin his first day in office, an
opportunity he has been looking for ages, of achieving his long desired self-attainment
simply by coming late. He was quite desirous and ambitious to write his name on
the pages of history, one way or the other, just like any other person. His
office time begins by 8.00am. Arriving at 8:41am, “…and remember, punctuality is
the soul of business”. He was summoned and summarily dismissed. Back to base.
Ambition, to whatever thing it could be, is noble,
worth it and is on demand. Hope the statement did not throw you off your composure.
Ambition, which of course is congenital and attached to the human nature, belongs
to the root of what humans are, fundamentally. And like Ralph Waldo Emerson
would say, “without ambition one starts nothing”. It functions as the driving
force and the enablement for the human day
to day activities, makes one wake up morning after morning, day after day, even
when one would rather sleep ahead, makes one go outdoors, when one would rather
stay indoors, makes one go into the sun, even when one needs the peace of the
shadows, makes one storm one´s brains with multiple engaging thoughts, even
when one would rather just watch the clouds move, leaves waving, papers flying,
planes gliding through the night sky, just rather listen to slow melodies of
soft music and do nothing but abandoning himself to the total caress of mother
nature and laze about. Yet one rises and moves ahead, being pushed by a force beyond
him to go ahead, to keep moving, to achieve things, and to record ones name
even if it is on a marble where only oneself alone knows. This is ambition at
work. It is in the nature of man, that is, to desire, to have ambitions. Without
ambitions, one is simply vegetative, unproductive, totally stagnated and is as
good as dead. Indeed, it’s the necessary and prerequisite
instrument for penetrating into the soul of life, the world of the unknown,
where success is permanently residing. Without doubt, man needs to be ambitious.
But then, wait a bit. What really does this mean? Here, I want to introduce what
I call the “POSUFFYOVER” factor. (Don’t look for this word in the
dictionary because you will not find it). The “Posuffyover” is a self-coined acronym for a triangular or triad approach
to the description of the roads leading to and from ambition. “Po-suffy-over” stands for Poorly-sufficiently
and over-motivated ambition. What are we talking about here?
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THE “POSUFFYOVER”
FACTOR or the ambition triad
As a matter of fact, reality has only one face,
however, the road to its discovery could be various, depending on one´s speed,
instruments, basic predispositions, background conditions, and power of
perception. To some it is giving to arrive at reality quick enough, to others,
very late, and to many, not at all. But of all things, everybody wants to
arrive at the reality, at truth, everybody wants facts as they are and
everybody wants to know and to achieve. Nevertheless, not everybody achieves
this feat at the same level, giving the aforementioned prerequisites. In the
pursuit of truth, fundamentally, there are those who follow the right path and
naturally those who go the wrong way. The numbers of those who follow the right
path are unfortunately much reduced. This is because that road is very rigorous
and demanding. To follow that road, one needs focus, principles, convergent
energy and rugged consistency. To be ambitious entails to be on the steady search.
But on the search for what? Of course searching for the truth in whatever thing
one does. Truth is the highest thing one can ever search for, find or lose. It is
the highest thing there is and ever would be. When one knows the
shortest, safest and most certain route to one´s destination in this search and
follows it promptly, then one´s ambition is rightly directed. When the opposite is the case, there, we
begin to talk of poor- or over ambition. It’s like this: some people are under-
or poorly motivated to pursue this truth, some are sufficiently motivated
towards it while some others are erroneously motivated towards this same end.
When one is sufficiently motivated, then one is sure on the path of the full
positive implication of what Ambition stands for. On the contrary, the effect
manifests the conspiracy of doomsday.
The “Po-motivated” side of the Ambition-triad
Plato Ariston, one of the founding fathers of
western philosophy in his political philosophy arrived at 3 kinds of people in
an Olympic game: the spectators, the players and even those who came to trade. I
am sure that if Plato lived today, he would have added the “Olympic-hooligans”
to his list. However, I would, for the purpose of this essay, add it for him.
Four groups therefore in that Olympic game. Each person or group interestingly participates
in a certain way they deem fit. At the centre point in this Plato’s political
analysis is the game of Olympics. Therefore, applying these to our theme of
discuss, the spectators belong to the “Po-motivated” side of the Olympic
triad. They are poorly motivated towards an “active” participation in the game.
They are just comfortable with buying their entry tickets wherever the game
might be taking place, sitting by the stadium cover and analyzing the game´s
progression, whether rightly or wrongly doesn’t come into question. Their involvement
in and motivation towards the games is a thing of the head and they busy
themselves making theories of how the games should have been or what the
players should have done in order to come out better. Tell them to go do so,
then you are pushing them beyond their limits, away from the circuit where they
belong and feel safe. Simply put, they are in nirvana, where suffering is
inadmissible and full time relaxation the watch word. They belong to the
consumer class. For Norman Vincent Pearle, the reason why these people don’t
achieve such physical commitments is because they are weakly motivated while
their faith is diluted due from negative little doubts and fear of failure. So
they don’t dare to dare lest they fail. They are ever looking, dreaming, analyzing,
hoping and theorizing without concomitant practical input to bring to life the
contents of their heads. These people occupy the poorly-motivated side of the
ambition triad. Most times they aim at nothing and they always hit nothing. Call
them the “Po-ambi-members” McDonald
of our entry story belongs here those times he silenced the alarm and didn’t
want to wake up from his sleep. He was at that time not yet motivated strong
enough to face the reality of waking up.
The “SuffY-motivated” side of the Ambi-triad
This represents the sufficiently-motivated
group. They have their plans well spelt out, with times and dates unmistakably
intact. Everything in their life has its own time and sequence, non overlaps
the other. Their head knows its function of planning, dreaming and strategizing,
but it knows equally exactly when to incorporate the services of the other
parts of the body and vice-versa. There is collaborative functionality in the
body members of the sufficiently-motivated person. He has the desire for
achievement, dreams it, plans it and makes sure to realize it. He wakes up from
sleep even before the alarm rings, that is, if he needs alarm at all. He knows
when to rise up and when to go abed, when to work and how to work, and of
course when to rest. So in him is the montage of the “Po” factor and the “Suffy”
factor. He begins from mental concepts and ends in the material realization. The
players in the field of play in the Plato´s Olympic categorization fall within
this class. They care little about the commentaries being run on them and their
activities; they care little about analyses of their performances because they
are too involved in what they are doing. They are fully concentrated and
focused in their goals and destination so that they pick only the instruments
that help them achieve their aims, nothing more, nothing less. They are the
builders and producers and they provide others topics for discussion. In our
leading story, McDonald graduated to this class the time he woke up and stepped
outside for the day’s activities. The stage of doing.
The “Over-motivated side” of the Ambi-triad
Here we encounter ambition in its most
dangerous definition and implication, effect and appearance. Here, ambition runs riot and amok, knowing no
more it´s boundary and limits. It’s like a vehicle pushed in overdrive, without
break, no headlight, no side mirror no inner-centre mirror, no traffic
indicator, no steering, only throttle. Would you want to drive such a vehicle?
Or would you want to drive in-front of or behind such a vehicle, or would you
even want to be given a lift with such a vehicle even if you were stranded in
the middle of nowhere? Would you drive in the same road that such a vehicle is
plying? Of course the answer to these is in the negative, come what may unless
one has dug ones grave, ready to bury oneself. But such is the case that people
encounter every day. Over ambitious individuals, who step on toes and damn the
consequences; they are all over the place. The “Olympic hooligans” in that
Olympic Games fall within this class of people. They care less about whose ox
is gored. Violence and rascality; disrespect and blind pursuit is their stock
in trade. Let us take it from here: The human society is not just a large
social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to
the same political authority. The human society is not just a group of people
related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles
and social networks. The society is a group of people that are controlled, over
and above all, by the bonds of cultural identity and laws, by the bonds of
social solidarity and functional interdependence, a grouping of individuals
which is characterized by mutual interests and a common objective and may have
distinctive institutions.
As a matter of fact, the prerogative of every
society, over and above all, is to uphold its common interest while
safeguarding a peaceful co-existence of the individual members, fostered by
functional interdependence augmented with unflagging social solidarity. As such
it may not suffice to uphold any grouping of people as a society if mutual
interests, social solidarity, functional interdependence and common objective
are egocentrically and damply tampered with individual egotistic interests
often manifested in unguarded quests. These unguarded quests emanates from the
dark side of ambition: to be seen or known more than others, to be above
others, to have more than others, to know more than others, to understand above
others, to control others and never to be answerable to anybody outside self. Such
a quest has of course drawbacks that
distort the good ordering of the society because the over-ambitious soul knows
nothing next to carefulness, respect for natural nor man-made laws, no respect
for individuals and no attention whatsoever to the feelings or good of others.
Ambition in the words of Emily Dickson, an American poet, is like a bee, which has a song and a sting.
Here, in over-ambition, we encounter it´s painful sting, where caution is
thrown to the ever blowing harmattan haze. McDonald of our story became a
member of this group immediately he decided to reach his destination by hook
and crook. In him is the presence of the triad.
But let truth be told, the unguarded quest for recognition
and more, which is represented in the “over-motivated” side of the ambi-triad, is
not at all inconsistent with human nature. “The desire”, St Augustine writes in
his “City of God”, “tempts even noble minds”. Politicians and religious leaders, men,
women, boys, girls and children alike, all want to be or have more. But it is
in the presence of this quest that characters are defined, and groups differentiated,
the good from the bad and ugly. How one channels ones inner motives and with
which method one goes around the realization of those inner yearnings gives one
ones character and categorizes one either to the Poorly, sufficiently or over-motivated
ambition divide. Karol Wojtyla, the
Pope John Paul II, for one, Mother
Theresa of Calcutta, Martin Luther King Jr., even Jesus the Christ himself,
were examples of people caught up in this web and they are reckoned today only
in paradigmatic instances. But such a quest has led so a many to do unspeakable
and despicable things, thus impeding the smooth flow of the society and
hindering progressive development. The Roman Julius Caesar, the Egyptian Cleopatra,
The German Adolf Hitler, the Libyan Muammar al-Gadhafi, the Nigerian Sanni
Abacha, the Spanian Christopher Columbus, are all but few examples of people
who were caught up in this web. Today the world remembers them only in
apocalyptic cadences. Difference lies in methodology.
Thing is, the impulse could be the same but the
methodology and consequence totally parallel.
Hence, the baneful hazards of the quest for more sprout when
egocentricity is not checkmated by social solidarity, cohesion and esteemed
common interest. The important consequence of this is the unrest and instability
that is vibrating and resounding in many societies of the world today, in
African societies for one, and far beyond the coasts. Those at the helm of
affairs at the state institutions would prefer fame to common objective and
mutual interests at the expense of the rule of law and the general common good.
What a shame!
A dignifying
consensus
There is always a starting, meeting and
returning point for all things that work. It´s called the drawing board. At
that point and place, reason takes its place and determines as it were, the best
route of departure and the way forward. At that meeting point, as it pertains
to our concern here, selfishness drops its grip and recedes to the background,
allowing selfless collaboration to take the centre stage. At that point, people
begin to search for the ultimate liberating truth and the best methodology of
its pursuance. This puts the common good before the good of the self. At that
point, sometimes, the self even disappears completely and subsumes itself into
the universal, which means, being there for others and putting others before
self. Alexander Graham Bell is well known by almost all. He invented the phones
but he never made a call to his family because his wife and daughter were deaf.
That’s life lived for others for the worst in life is attachment to our
desires. Granted, humans are by nature selfish. If man is at one point not
wanting to be involved in the progress of others, he wants to overshadow it.
Everybody at one time or the other wants their light to shine more than that of
others and to be candid, there is nothing absolutely wrong with that. Indeed it
is expected that people make honest efforts to be at the forefront of events. The
problem however arises when the philosophy of the end justifying the means
rules the strategy. Such a philosophy needs to be rearranged to fall into shape.
Poorly motivated ambition is as wrong as over
motivated ambition because the one draws the world into an unending abyss of
consumerism culture, irrecoverable laxity and consequent stagnation, while the
other brings everything into chaos. The meeting point is in the ambition that
is sufficiently motivated, where all the unbridled disequilibrium of poorly-and
over ambitions are checkmated. Therefore, the sufficiently motivated ambition
acts as the checking point for the other two sides. When one is not
sufficiently motivated, one is likely to give up ones designs when one has
almost reached one´s goal. At that stage, it becomes imperative for one just to
cull the sufficient dogged energy of inner motivation to obtain victory by
exerting, even if it is at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever
before. But care needs here be taken not to over cross the boundaries and
sacrifice ones conscience to ambition because that would tantamount burning a
picture only to obtain its ashes. Peace!
Kingsley
Anagolu
Jan 13, 2016
