Is ambition necessary in life? What if I dont have any big aim in life?

Question

I believe that happiness is where there is no ambition. Your views please.

Answer 1

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
— Charles Kingsley

Enthusiasm moves the world.
— Arthur James Balfour

Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803-1882).

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
— Confucius

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
— Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (500 BCE)

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.
— Bruce Barton

Nothing great was ever achieved without great enthusiasm
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
— Albert Einstein

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
— Winston Churchill

'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong.
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Nothing gives one person so much of an advantage over another as to remain unruffled in all circumstances.
— Thomas Jefferson

Answer 2

Newton's third law states that "Every Action has an equal and opposite reaction" So ambition is the action which spurs you and eggs you along this path called life. It brings in desires to better your life and along with it you achieve happiness when everything falls in your way. If things go awry , you are drowned in sorrow. Man, we are not that gyaanis to say we have no ambition. Even the Gitaa says, your Karma is very important. So as a Grihasta, you should have an ambition. If there were no ambitions, you would not be using a computer and signing into Yahoo Answers!!! So strive and set goals for yourself.

Answer 3

Great question.... Star!!

Ambition is a function of ego and environmental possibilities. If one does not have any big ambition, indeed there would be no scope for any major disappointment either.

However, in order to be happy without ambition, one has to strike at the root where it is born and that is ego. Therefore, unless ego can be kept in check, it would make one unhappy and restless in the absence of ambition..... it would make one feel as though one is wasting the life without significant achievements. The right formula thus may be to keep ego in check and thereby avoid having too high aims in life.

Answer 4

Ambition is ambition. Yours may be HUGE and may be small but it is still ambition.
Having a BIG aim in life is just something that only a FEW people have. Not everyone has some great "KNOWING" from early youth that drives them to see it and attain it at all costs.

Just deciding that your ambition is to just hang and see what all happens...then that is fine. It is still ambition and it is necessary to have one. You have to have an underlying even subconscious "plan" in order to make your movements in life. So, I am calling this "plan" ambition.
Happiness is being "fine" where you are doing what you're doing. Even if it is not some great high and mighty achievement it is still necessary to have YOUR personal ambition directing you in life.

Answer 5

I think at some point in your life you will not have any ambition, but as the years progress you will develop a reason to live, and some type of ambition whether its a a small or large scale.....ambitious doesnt necessary mean that your trying to save the world, it could be that you may have a future goal to earn big, or have money in your account, or to find happiness with family or friends etc etc

without some type of ambition, life seems too dull.........everyone is ambitious at some point, whether its small or large scale.

Answer 6

If you don't have a big aim in life, you'll never hit anything.
Which is ok, it sounds, for you. I say if you're happy, why mess with it?

As far as happiness = no ambition, that might be true for some. I think ambition is needed for progress and evolution.

Answer 7

My primary ambition is to be happy and at peace in my life. I don't make a lot of money, but all my needs are taken care of, my children are happy and healthy, I have a job I love, and true friends. I sometimes wish I had a bit more money, but is enough really ever enough? One thing I have found though is in looking for a mate, I do not do well with overly ambitious A type personalities. I feel inferior and you might think that would spur me on to get ambitious., but hey, I'm happy, so why mess with success?

Answer 8

Yes, i think this cause if you don't have any ambition or goal in life then what is there to do in life. You don't have a big aim but you do have some type of goal you want to reach like graduating from college. You can't just not have any goal. You must do have some type of goal.

Answer 9

I am the complete opposite of you, as I am an extremely ambitious person. My goals in life have made it possible to not only achieve , but be successful. If I am not working towards something in life- I don't feel that "inner drive" that I feel is necessary in life. I continually set new goals for myself once my old ones are achieved. I also tend to believe that in some ways ambition coincides with occupation. I am a special educator. Therefore, I need to be ambitious - if not for myself- for my students. I also believe that there are aspects of a person's individual life that makes them ambitious through personal experiences. You may not be an ambitiuos person right now, but something in life could happen that you are totally "driven" by. It could be today, next year, or even twenty years from now, but something will happen in your life that drives you to be ambitious!

Answer 10

Ambition..what is it? It is just a product of the 'future', which has never arrived yet. Time is the greatest conspirator. It creates something called 'thoughts' in you. Thoughts are based out of your past, your experiences, your 'bundle of memories'. There is no contributions from 'you' as a person who wants to know the ambitions. Thoughts are influenced by your nearer, dearer who, once upon a time probably shared their ambitions with you. Thoughts have no sense, it cannot guide you, it inflicts pain and pleasure together. My ambition is this or that; how does it make any difference to your quality of living now. You are sitting under a tree in your college campus or in a park thinking about your ambitions. Birds are whistling, flowers are spreading the fragnance. You have taken no notice to them as you have taken your 'present' for granted. 'Present' is of no importance to you because you do not know how to derive joy from your present. You rather try to look into your future trying to derive pleasure out of it. In thoughts there is no action and there is no failure. So you take a shortest route to pleasure. You want to be happy if I share with you your ambitions. You are not threatened, you get pleasure. But pleasure always brings with it the 'pain' which you want to avoid. I need not thus indulge in thinking of future. Stay and enjoy your present. Enjoyment is devoid of pattern, knowledge but pleasure has stored pattern...your thoughts have created it.