Ambition vs Acceptance
When you're younger, you are encouraged to be ambitious. As the years fly by, you learn the important of accepting. Of late, I've found myself in a tricky spot - figuring out the right balance of ambition and acceptance.
I would consider myself an ambitious person. There's a lot I think I can achieve and when I look back at where I started and how far I've come along, I'm optimistic about the future. I want to set goals for myself and work hard towards achieving them.
On the other hand, I've also realised that most things in life are beyond our control. Instead of trying and changing them, learning to accept and looking at the situation with the right lens is a wiser choice.
While ambition pushes you to challenge the status quo, acceptance pushes you to do the opposite. And thus I find myself feeling a lack of ambition on some days and on other days, I need to remind myself that instead of complaining and being impatient, I need to accept what is and make the most of it
The only resolution to this dilemma is that it might be possible to be ambitious in some parts of my life and at the same time be accepting in others. I feel one way to do this is to be ambitious when the time frame is longer, and accepting when the time frame is shorter.
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To clarify, by accepting, I don't mean having an attitude of "let's just do this the same way as it's been happening all along". I don't imply accepting the status quo when it's sub-optimal. It's more about being ok when things don't go as per the plan but trying to make the most with what cards are dealt to you.