The Library

When a person has difficulty feeling ambition, he might think, “That’s just not me. I’m not ambitious. I have no drive to be any better than the regular Joe that I am.” Many people face this at some point, when they just “don’t feel it” and wonder whether their dreams have died. Emotions are erratic and there will be times when we don’t feel inspired — especially when we are down. Reading about our amazing opportunity to become great is usually enough to motivate us. But sometimes we need a little more to find the excitement within us. It is time to draw out our ambition so we can live a thrilling life.

One of our strongest drives is the desire for honor. We don’t always realize we have it because when we think about the desire for honor, we envision an obnoxious man shamelessly showing off. But this drive is manifest in different ways depending on the person and where he is holding in life. Some people want to be popular. Others like to show off. Many people have a secret desire to be uniquely successful or even legendary. Some don’t feel such strong desires, but at least are self-conscious when in front of certain people whose opinions they care about. And everyone wants to feel important. All these urges are different manifestations of the desire for honor. This is why people like to get attention at parties. A person wants others to think highly of him. He doesn’t want to feel ordinary. He wants to feel special.

Consider the following:

• Do you ever daydream about what it would be like to have a talent that nobody else has, like the ability to do magic or to fly?
• In competitive areas that matter to you, don’t you ever wish you stood out and were the most successful? (For example: the best basketball player, the smartest, the richest, or the most respected.)
• Don’t you try to be the best in the class? Don’t you at least find yourself daydreaming about being the best? Do you ever wish you had a secret edge that put you a bit above everyone else?
• When you are at a large social gathering, do you thirst for attention? Do you wish there was something unique about you that would make everyone think highly of you?

These are all manifestations of your drive to become great. When you experience these emotions, you should tell yourself, “Getting attention for things that don’t matter is not the way to satisfy my desire; achieving monumental accomplishments that make me shine for eternity is. Though I might not have so many of these accomplishments now, you better believe I will do whatever it takes to become great. I don’t want to be a nobody. I am going to become special with something that really matters — accomplishment.”

Desire for honor is a cover-up for our strongest drive, the desire to accomplish and become uniquely great. We are born with this ambition. The problem is that it is easily sublimated into the drive for honor. Instead of trying to become special, we show off our talents or possessions. We want everyone to think highly of us. But this does not make us happy, because what we really want is to feel good about ourselves. When we are not who we want to be, we feel the need to show off. We must ask ourselves, “Do I want to show others how great I am while knowing it’s all a lie? Do I want to impress others with my possessions while feeling down about myself? Or do I want to feel great knowing I have changed myself into someone worth being proud of? I want to impress myself, not someone else!”

Once we contemplate this, we will unleash our desire to become great. We will realize that honor is not the real goal, even when we want it. Our desire for honor will transform into real ambition and we will start accomplishing.