Where does duty end and personal ambition begin? Is ambition wrong? Is the quest for power and control over others wrong? Haven't you said to yourself, there's something great I'm supposed to do? My life will be different from the lives of others. Shouldn't my dreams be as real as anyone else's? I wasn't content to sit and watch the world pass by. I wanted to shape it, control it, mold it. I had plans and ambitions and knew I'd achieve them, whatever the cost.
Power is all I wanted, the power to control others. I saw power as something to satisfy my desires, instead of a tool used to protect my family. It was a stupid attitude and eventually it got the best of me. But until it did, I was dangerous. I was capable of almost anything. My desire had no limits and became obsession. I was racing through life creating, changing, destroying, and always to the extreme.
Ambitions are incompatible with conscience. The two strangle one another out and leave an awful mess behind. Am I a man of conscience or ambition? A man of conscience would tell you that he is a person of conscience. A man of ambition would tell you that he is a person of conscience - only much more convincingly.
I held money and success sacred, believed in money and status, believed in pleasing myself. I liked to own things, and when I got bored with those, I bought new things. I am ambitious, but have come to learn that ambition must have its limits or it will end in disaster. I wanted money and power, but money and power didn't make things different, did they? Not where it mattered. Not on the inside. All money does is make a man more of what he already is. A fool with money is still a fool. A good man with money is still a good man. There's more to the world than money. More to life than what you can do with it.
All men and women experience failure. It's a terrible fact of life that nobody has wisdom until they've tasted failure. Knowing that, given a choice, most of us would all stay ignorant. Yet, ironically we're better people for having failed; we have all that wisdom to take with us.
Power is all I wanted, the power to control others. I saw power as something to satisfy my desires, instead of a tool used to protect my family. It was a stupid attitude and eventually it got the best of me. But until it did, I was dangerous. I was capable of almost anything. My desire had no limits and became obsession. I was racing through life creating, changing, destroying, and always to the extreme.
Ambitions are incompatible with conscience. The two strangle one another out and leave an awful mess behind. Am I a man of conscience or ambition? A man of conscience would tell you that he is a person of conscience. A man of ambition would tell you that he is a person of conscience - only much more convincingly.
I held money and success sacred, believed in money and status, believed in pleasing myself. I liked to own things, and when I got bored with those, I bought new things. I am ambitious, but have come to learn that ambition must have its limits or it will end in disaster. I wanted money and power, but money and power didn't make things different, did they? Not where it mattered. Not on the inside. All money does is make a man more of what he already is. A fool with money is still a fool. A good man with money is still a good man. There's more to the world than money. More to life than what you can do with it.
All men and women experience failure. It's a terrible fact of life that nobody has wisdom until they've tasted failure. Knowing that, given a choice, most of us would all stay ignorant. Yet, ironically we're better people for having failed; we have all that wisdom to take with us.
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