Realize Your Ambition for What It Truly Is

You can see how mastery over a few things makes it possible to live an abundant and devout life,

If you keep watch over these things, the gods won’t ask for more.

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.5

Careful, now, grasshopper.

It’s a short life, and your head is full of ambition. Wants. Desires. Ego, greed even. You want more, more, more.

As if this life is only the pursuit, possession, and consumption of station, power, and experiences.

It is not — a good, simple, humble life, at least.

You can choose to pursue a thousand visions, a thousand praises, a thousand women.

The world is open for play, as are you — to be corrupted, to be lost, to become a slave to your own desires.

Choose what to pursue, not because you wish to be praised, and surely not because you wish to be loved.

One may praise, glorify, laud, deify, admire, envy, and even desire you because of what you pursue, and who you pursue to be.

But no one will follow you just because you are strong.

No one will love you just because you are successful.

Praise, recognition, pride — fleeting, shallow, and utterly devoid of nourishment.

Ask yourself — why do you desire what you desire?

Power?

Influence?

Love? Insecurity? Betrayal? Anger? Sense of purpose?

Nothing external will, or even can, sustain you for a lifetime.

You can not own things. You can not own people. You can not own power.

The only thing you can own: The choices you make.

The only thing you can know: One step of the path you are on.

The only thing you know to be true: All men must die.

But first, they must live.

And a good life is worth living. It is worth fighting for. It is worth the time we are given.