Ambition distracts.
It pulls me away from my work. It roots me in an “almost” state where I am not yet enough and the absurd notion that I have to do things now to become enough later. And it keeps my focus on a future fiction instead of the present reality.
And that reality is that I’m already what I’m trying to become. My being is what counts. Before my thinking gets involved, I am always exactly what I should be, included and accepted as I truly AM, HERE and NOW. Always.
Living in the awareness of my completeness here and now allows me to do my work and serve myself and others wholeheartedly.
When I’m sane, I see that I am, and everything else in the universe is, enough.
I see that I always have been and always will be enough - no matter what.
Forgetting this leads me to suffering, frays my sense of self, fractures my sense of community and diminishes my sense of contribution to the world.
Listen up, me: Let go of ambition. Do your work in this moment, which is to experience love within, among, for, and from everything you encounter, and to celebrate the fact that you are doing so.
Interesting realizations:
When I let go of ambition, a feeling of satisfaction and letting go follows each thing I do. I’m able to rest physically, mentally and emotionally and then return to my work refreshed.
Ambition causes me to ask the question, “Has what I’ve done brought about the future I foresaw?” When I’m in ambition the answer is, by definition, “no” for every step on the journey that has not achieved the arbitrary goal (which, by the way, is every step along the way).
So if I am not rooted in an awareness of my inherent oneness with what is, here and now, I become frustrated and feel the impulse to abandon my work, only to either double down on winning a war with myself or grasp for new, “better” things to do, things whose results are just as doomed to fall short of the goal as the thing I abandoned. I’ve done both, over and over in my life.
If I’m resilient (or fortunate) enough to achieve the goal, joy and relief enter in. Why? Because AMBITION STOPS for a moment. It’s the one time I accept things as they are, the one time I believe they are as they should be. But almost immediately, that gives way to a new ambition, a new thing to strive for that I am not right now. And I plunge myself back into a world of “achievement” or “falling short.”
It’s an innocent mistake! Everything is always as it should be. I can’t help but bring about exactly what should happen in every moment of my life. I can’t fall short, I can only believe that I’m falling short. And it’s that very belief ambition inspires: the absurd belief that I am not where I should be, a belief that repeats and amplifies in me, clouding over my true being and obscuring my inherently peaceful soul.
My simple, embodied, active PRESENCE, where I am, AS I am, is all that’s needed to serve me and my world and it’s all that’s needed for me to belong to that world. Because there’s no way to not belong, only ways to think and believe I don’t.
Trying to “make something happen” amplifies my confusion, separates me from myself and my world, and diminishes my ability to see my true impact on everything. It sacrifices my experience of the present for a future that will never come.
I have found that when I am living for some future that will never come, I can never really rest. I never feel completely whole. Even as the titles and positions and awards pile up.
But when I live into my present being and fully embody my presence in the world, in this moment, I am not inclined to stop my work because I see that my work is what I am called to NOW, that what is happening NOW is serving NOW perfectly and so doing my work brings me a feeling of wholeness and settledness and community. I feel connected. I feel love. Frustration and impatience melt away and I feel like I I’m floating along with what is. And I see that I can float along with what is forever and ever and ever.
Said another way: I’m already “there.” I am ALWAYS already “there.” “There” (the place I really want to get to) and “here” (where I really am) are always the same place. Always.
And it’s always a new place:
Exactly the right place for me, right here and now.