Avoid a Shallowness of Ambition

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Barack Obama

“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.” (Barack Obama)

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If you only focus on making money and on furthering your own self-interests, you will run the risk of limiting the value of your ambitions.

To fully utilize your potentials and to be successful, your ambitions need to be connected to something beyond just your own well-being. They need to be related to a point of reference that incorporates the welfare of others and of the common good. In short, they need to be tied to something greater than yourself.

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“The man who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed, you must have a larger ambition.” (John D. Rockefeller)

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.” (Marcus Aurelius)

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” (Cesar Chavez)


Getting Personal

Do you agree with the idea that making money by itself is not a sufficiently meaningful ambition in life? Why or why not?

By Gary and Esther Berkley

Gary and Esther Berkley are the authors of "Whatever You Become, Become Your Best - The College and Graduate Guide to Wisdom for Success in Life." Check it out at www.amazon.com/dp/B09593L5FT

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