It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success.
U2, The Fly
I am not a fan of ambition. I have lived long enough to consider ambition to be a temptation for disaster. This does not change the fact that I am afflicted by ambitious desires. When they come, I learn to squelch them. This is because having a desire for something does not equate to having that something. It is free to dream, but those dreams end when you have to start the work. This is when dreams turn into grind.
When it comes to ambitious desires, I remember the story of the rock band KISS and the concept album they made called Songs From the Elder. The public mostly rejected that album, and critics consider it a failure. Looking back, KISS should have stuck with the meat and potatoes rock and roll that made them successful. They made simple songs that people still enjoy today. KISS was not prog rock.
You will never see a prog rock album from AC/DC. Like KISS, AC/DC is a meat and potatoes type of band except they valued consistency over creativity. AC/DC reined in ambitious desires and gave their fans what they wanted.
Ambitious desires run counter to my Grand Unifying Theory that guides me in life. Once you have locked onto a GUT strategy, you want to stick with it and not stray from it. This requires discipline. I think you should change a strategy if it isn't working. But if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The first great temptation to ambition comes from boredom. People get tired of winning. I know this is hard to believe, but it is true. I see it when men who are married to good women throw it away for a fling with an exciting whore. That is really dumb, but many men do this. They are bored with living, so they need risk and destruction to make it exciting again. People who constantly crave stimulation like this can never be happy in life.
The second great temptation to ambition is greed. People will see that things are going well for them, but they think they can get more instead of being satisfied with what they have. In pursuit of satisfaction for this greed, they bite off more than they can chew and end up with less than they had before.
The third great temptation to ambition is vanity. People want greater achievements in life to burnish their egos. This is when the popular director decides he wants an Oscar by making an art film. Or, he is allowed to indulge a personal project because of his past successes.
The fourth great temptation to ambition is loss of confidence. A great example of this is the man experiencing a mid-life crisis. He sells the Buick for a Corvette and leaves his wife for a woman half her age. Eventually, he realizes his mistake, but he is stuck with the consequences.
The antidote to ambitious desires is to know thyself. Know who you are. Disaster comes when you forget who you are. You need to know what you are about. If you do this, you will spare yourself many disasters. This self-knowledge requires humility.
Daydreams turn into nightmares. I tell myself this all of the time. I have learned that the real challenge in life is to be satisfied with enough and to be honest with yourself. In the long term, modesty and consistency triumph over ambition.
