This triggered some feelings in someone who lives thousands of kilometres away from their country home town. But when I stop to think about my own (ambitious) path, I considered something that this article doesn't: Can ambitious people be happy staying put?
I may not have the contentedness of the stay-at-home types, but I know for certain that I am a lot happier for leaving.
I think this is an interesting idea. Might it be that ambitious people are happy as they hunt their dreams and when achieving it need to dream bigger to be happy again.
and there lies their fallacy - sooner or later they'll reach a hill they cannot climb/run out of time/any other reason. Truly ambitious people I've met, on the outside, from the distance seem like ideal human beings - achieving a lot, always moving forward.
When I became to know them more, pattern was same - they will never be as happy as I am right now, was yesterday, will probably be tomorrow and so on. For them, life is never-ending race, at the finish line of one goal run for next one already begun. Somebody to run my country/company/whatever? Probably very good choice. Do I want this never-ending mental treadmill? Hell NO! :)
I had a Chinese Algorithms/Computer Graphics professor tell me something that has stuck with me for awhile. He said, "lower your expectations, and you will be happier" I have been ambitious for a long time , and this makes sense. Like saya-jin stated,
>>" For them, life is never-ending race, at the finish line of one goal run for next one already begun"
Life's short, ambition is a tiring habit.
I'm 24, B.S. comp sci degree, cg enthusiast, musician, and Jack of all trades - I'm headed out to SF California for a few weeks. I'm mostly doing it because I've wanted to see if I can look for VR development or at least see how they do it out there. What stories do I want to tell my kids and grandkids? What am I building for their generations? If I focus on always building and never investing in relationships, I won't see grandkids due to putting off life until the job gets done. If I focus on relationships and communities , there's a chance that I might never build anything "great" (or expensive/popular) for the world. There's a balance. I'm realizing now that if there was a black and white choice, I'd much rather have grandkids in a supportive community and build a love of computer graphics & community wherever I'm at.
I may not have the contentedness of the stay-at-home types, but I know for certain that I am a lot happier for leaving.