‘Ambition’ = about action
‘Ambivalence’ = seeing value in both ways/sides
One foot in and one foot out.
Your head is in and your heart is somewhere else.
You love what you have but isn’t the grass greener on the other side?
These are some phrases that imply ambivalence.
For some reason, I’ve had shame around feeling ambivalent for a lot of my life.
This shame was given a great hug last night, when my dad let me in on a little secret: “everybody, no matter how confident they appear on the outside, is experiencing some level of ambivalence about what they are doing.”
I felt human, and not alone.
Even the professional athlete who is banking millions of dollars a year playing a sport s/he at one time was infatuated...and still may be infatuated with, probably considers a handful of other career paths s/he could be on.
Commitment and decisions require that we cut off other options. In fact, by it’s direct definition ‘decide’ means ‘to cut off.’
It can be painful.
Committing to one course of action.
It requires sacrifice.
It also requires trust and faith--in the prosperity of that course of action.
Yet, isn’t it necessary?
Without action, all options remain unexplored, and all success remains never experienced or tasted.
I am reminded of the quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
It’s awesome to want success in multiple avenues of life, and that is entirely possible.
But, to meander in your mind about which one is the best without taking steps and putting in the blood, sweat, and tears to make progress on any path at all, is to waste your precious life.
This brings me back to the title of this post.
Ambivalence is not only okay, it is human. But without ambition--or placing the onus on the actions you are ‘about’--or emphatic about taking, to bring some success...from path a or b or c or zz to life, no progress will be made, all of the figs will shrivel and drop, and our bellies and spirits will be left unfed.
Where in your life might an ambition over ambivalence mindset benefit you?