Caution: Don't Be Too Ambitious

Is ambition wrong? 

Can there be a right ambition and thus a wrong ambition?  

I particularly like the challenge of this question as it poses the perplex paradox of pursuing greatness as gain (being the best person I can be) or for profit (solely monetary gains).  What man doesn’t want to be great?  What man doesn’t have great plans in his heart that he puts into motion, all the while utilizing the skills and talents that are God given to get there? Understanding this, I believe the pursuit is not wrong, but the motivation – ultimately, why I am pursuing – distinguishes good ambition from bad ambition.  Am I aware of God’s glory and all the praise He deserves as a result of my attaining greatness?  To see greatness, to have it in my sight implies that I am operating on a higher plateau. Understanding that I have been raised [with Christ], and therefore my heart has been set on things above [my previous standard for and of excellence]. To graduate to high school means I can’t go back and be the best eighth grader, ever.  I no longer operate on that [lower] plateau.  I adhere to new rules; often more stricter and specific rules now that I have graduated.  A new discipline is needed. Paul suggests that whatever I do, be sincere; whatever I do, ask how am I using the gifts and talents God has given me and how does He want me to use them. 

I exist for God’s pleasure – pleasure fully acknowledged when I work with passion and excellence for His sake, not mine.  For His service and not personal profit, since I know that I will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It’s all about God’s goals, accomplished through my assignments. My chief instruction for living is to please God (1 Thess 4:1)

I am ambitious – this is by design.  I undertake projects in a month that outnumber what another would do in six months or for the whole year.  But the moment my work efforts lacks zest, passion, contagion, expectancy and excitement, I am not operating as designed. 

Be fully functioning: what I do, do it heartily as unto the Lord.

Colossians 3
1 Thessalonians 4

Too much ambition will result in a promotion to a job you cannot do. Have ambitions but know limitations. Limitations are the balance to ambitious endeavors.

Spartans Finish ...Strong

I finished.

I finished strong.

I severely cramped up in the process.

I was down for about an hour, but I was strong and I finished and I'm proud of that (I focus on the positives, lol). There was actually a physical therapist on my team who gave me a 20 minute treatment on the course right next to one of the obstacles. It was brutally hot and I got dehydrated but I finished strong. My overall time was 3 hours and 35 minutes. Minus the hour plus delay, I still wouldn’t have hit my target finish time but I would have finished at a decent time which is pretty good considering it was my first race and I was battling through the pain. However, the course was treacherous. It was not easy at all. And the race I'm gunning for in September is harder than the “sprint” I completed on Saturday. So I don't know about that one yet. Lol. But I want to do another one. I feel like the race got the best of me and my competitive nature is unsettled by that. I am not ignorant to the level of fitness needed in order to beat the course – and it's not that I was "unfit".  My conditioning was not my undoing, it was more course management.  I burned out, ran out of fuel.  I dehydrated. A totally avoidable error but it was my undoing.  So, not that I wasn’t physically ready, I wasn’t mentally ready.  

Fitness is a totally different mental preparation than athletics and competitive play. The coordinated skillful grace of an athlete on their respective field is not the same as the grunt and grind of …50 more lunge jumps with burpies or scaling a nine foot wall in mile three while running up a rocky mountain.  Yet, both athletics and fitness require a competitive edge that will determine if “they” can do it, then so can “I”. With athletics, I see and know my opponents, they have a name and a position.  But with fitness, I am my adversary.  Meaning, at the finish line, I can both win and lose with fitness.  I didn’t understand this relationship prior, rather, I underestimated this relationship.  It wasn’t until the glory of the race – reaching the finish line – that it all made sense.  I now understand the difference between fitness and athletics. 

I saw all I needed to do and be in order to fulfill my goals. I saw strength in weakness. I heard, without audible words, "keep going... I have to be better than I am today". I know the areas I need to improve in – first things first, awareness.

My legs still feel like cement. I'm all scratched up and bruised. I feel like I used to after a rugby match. But all I keep thinking about is 'I finished strong'. There was never a point of quitting. I am Sparta. LOL