Hi. What Ambition Have You Achieved?

We all grow up with ambition. Coupled with fantasy, we dream of flying through the stratosphere at supersonic speeds, winning Nobel prizes when we discover the cure for cancer, stepping on to some distant planet, rescuing an old man from a blazing building. For a very few, these dreams come true - through a firmly resolute ideology of working for what you want. The rest of us get swept with the ebb and flow of the conventional tide. It's a system that moulds us, tests us and wants us to choose between Engineering or Medicine or Business or Food Science when the time comes. We grow up, and are educated to form part of a modern, worker society that is driven by money. Economics is what makes the world go round, puts food on the table, keeps GDP numbers up, and basically maintains the material world we enjoy.

Some of us are happy with what we do, others compensate our non-chalance towards and/or dissatisfaction with the job with post-work activities, hobbies and shopping, others drink and/or eat too much, the rest complain and accept this daily cycle as an eventuality, characterised by a mind-numbing regularity peppered with various holidays, weddings, birthdays and national events. Ambition in adulthood has whittled into a mercenary form - fatter wallets, powerful jobs, cooler possessions - all it takes to move up the 1st world scale.

I still don't know what I want to do. Do you? Unfortunately, society isn't forgiving to those who want to try, especially if you're an adult with financial and emotional responsibilities. People look at you funny, more sorry that this joker wants to quit the rat race than glad he's pursuing a passion. I just want to be happy and be satisfied with my contribution. That’s it, no agendas, no grand plan, no scheme to take over the universe. Is this lack a deficiency in my being? Maybe I need to have a kid to snap me out of this imaginary ditch. Zap the be-responsible-do-your-job zing right back. A pay rise would work too I think, unfortunately. Despite this rhetoric, I am but still a slave to the dollar. Sorry.