Determination in the Decade

 

ambition - noun - strong desire to do or to achieve something, requiring determination and hard work.

This morning as I was contemplating going through the motions of starting the day, the most recent edition of Time, lounging auspiciously on my dining room table, caught my attention. Since I pay for a subscription to the magazine, I thought I had better read at least some of it before the next installment came, and I felt guilty for not having opened it up at all before I pitched it into the recycling bin. While paging through it, I noticed a personal essay on ambition, a word that no longer is broached in conversations that I tend to have with people, probably because most of my associates tend to have been there, done that already and are now striving for R&R as opposed to a raise or promotion at a job. Still, according to the article and my own cachet of common sense, a certain amount of determination is necessary to ward off depression (apparently), a.k.a. mental illness. In other words, just because you or I might be retired doesn't mean you or I should cast aside all of ambition entirely. 

Ostensibly, the best way to stay young and healthy is to have an altruistic purpose in life. Face it, striving for money and power can definitely have setbacks. Inside this decade of "woke," selfish ambition doesn't cut it anyway. It's just not trendy since there is just too much that needs to be done to preserve life on the planet. Even so your cause could be partially self-motivated (a reflection of who you are) and partially public-spirited (magnanimous). What I do, for instance, fits the bill. I write and record music with the intention of somehow improving the status quo of people's lives. Fame and fortune are not in the picture simply because A. I don't want the hassles involved with both and B. when it comes to the business of music, I am a realist. Thousands of songs debut a day, so why should anyone wish to listen to mine in particular? Well, I am hoping my lyrics speak to people in some way. On Sunday, someone in the Ukraine found my song "Looking for the Light" on RadioAirplay (jango.com) and listened to it. Whether or not, the person, ravaged by the effects of the continuing war there, felt a sense of solace or relief as a result, I don't know. But I would guess something good came out of the three minutes of hearing the one phrase from the song's refrain repeated several times: "I'll put up a sure fight just to overcome the pain." 

The takeaway is you never know what you can do for others until you try. Staying determined to make a difference in this decade of problematic politics, etc., isn't easy, but a clear, generous purpose in life will keep you away from destructive thoughts and behaviors. And at the end of the day, you might just feel a lot better about yourself. 

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