Ambition and Contentment
My daughter just started doing perfect cartwheels. She couldn’t do them at all a few months ago. I certainly didn’t teach her how to do them, as I have the athletic ability of a toad. She’s not in gymnastics class, cheerleading camp, or dance. She simply made up her mind to do them, and spent HOURS practicing in the yard and at the beach and during recess and on the living room floor. Cartwheel, bent knees and fell on the landing. Cartwheel, straight legs, fell on the landing. Cartwheel, bent knees, stuck the landing. Over and over and over again.
If I’m honest, it was a little annoying. For every four mediocre cartwheels, there was at least one shout of, “Mom! Watch this!” I would begrudgingly put down what I was doing, and watch through the window. The trash bin on my phone has over an hour total of video clips of her teaching herself to cartwheel. “Mom! Film this one!” I would obediently film, and show her, and she’d note her progress. “My legs got so high and straight on that one!” And then on to the next cartwheel. Her smile was electric as she hurled herself across the yard again, with no sign of disappointment from the two dozen failed attempts prior. Every single attempt, and I’m talking about THOUSANDS of cartwheels, she was SURE she would stick it and also UNFAZED when she didn’t. She never stuck it. Until she did. One day, all those hours of flying and falling and failing suddenly added up in the math of success, and she powered through the air in a perfect little X, landing with soundless grace on her toes with her arms stretched high in triumph.
I met a Buddhist monk once who had powerful, insightful goals and ambitions for his life and community. It struck me as odd, to have ambition as a monk. Shouldn’t he be concentrating on contentedness with his life instead? Wasn’t that the ethos of Buddhism? Detaching from cravings and desires about what might be, and making peace with what is? So I asked him. How do you balance ambition and contentment? He answered, “It’s about both expectation and motivation.”
If you can practice ambition WITHOUT expectation, as my daughter flew into each cartwheel with ZERO care if she nailed it or not, you will always be content in your endeavors. She smiled and laughed her way from cartwheel #1 all the way through cartwheel #2,167. She strove for perfection, but was also just happy to be there, cartwheeling. It felt good, to move her body that way, to stretch her limits, to build her skills, to achieve fully, or to fall just short of achievement. Didn’t matter to her. She had ambition sparking through her body, and still no expectation for the outcome. That’s one way to be both ambitious and content.
The motivation behind your ambition also drives your contentment with success. WHY are you striving for that next big thing? Is it just because it’s the next thing to do? Are you trying to prove something? And what happens when you get it? Are you satisfied? Or is it just on to the next gold star, blue ribbon, atta boy? What if I told you that striving for achievement without a deeper meaning behind it will never leave you satisfied? Can you see that the reason you aren’t content with your success isn’t because your goals are too hard, but because they’re TOO SMALL? My daughter didn’t put in that work on her cartwheel just to impress her friends. She wasn’t trying to make the cheer team. She wasn’t trying to prove to anyone BESIDES HERSELF AND THE UNIVERSE that she could do a cartwheel. She made a deal with her heart and her body and the grass beneath her that she would clutch that cartwheel. So, every time she tried and failed, she was still happy with her attempt. Because her motive was wider and deeper than doing that cartwheel for someone or something else. She was doing it for the sake of doing it. She was doing it for herself.
What are you ambitious to achieve next?
How do you plan to maintain your contentedness on your way to your next goal?
What are your expectations?
How big and deep and wide is your goal?
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“Such a liberated person is not attracted to material sense pleasure but is always in trance, enjoying the pleasure within. In this way the self-realized person enjoys unlimited happiness, for he concentrates on the Supreme.” Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 5, Text 21
