AMBITION: Liberty as we know it

Ambition’s an interesting one. Too much, and you run the risk of both underachieving and appearing overly-ambitious, and by extension, arrogant and naive. Too little, and whilst there’s no possibility of underachieving, there’s little possibility of achieving at all. ‘What are your ambitions in life?’ is one of the single most difficult-to-answer questions out there, and it gets haphazardly thrown around all the time.

In 1940, then President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made one of the most ambitious suggestions the United States had ever seen. America was gearing up to engage in a war that would throw the world into turmoil for a second time, and they weren’t even close to being prepared. By most estimations, the American military machine was either the 15th or 14th most powerful in the world at the time, but they were set to go toe to toe with the Japanese empire, a fierce and incredibly loyal fighting force, in addition to the Nazis which controlled the most powerful and the most terrifying army the world had ever witnessed.

With that in mind, Roosevelt boldly declared to Congress that he intended to produce 50,000 planes a year for the Navy and the Air Force. At the time, America wasn’t making a tenth of that. It was a monumental statement. It simultaneously appeared blusterous, outlandish and incredible. Congress was shocked and unsure whether to censure or applaud the suggestion. After some deliberation and general confusion, they sanctioned the funding requests. World War Two was won in no small part by the United States Air Force, both in the Pacific and Europe, and the planes they flew on were instrumental in that victory.

It was neither the first nor the last time that a US President would stand up and say something so dramatically audacious that it would incur criticism from both sides of the isle as well as the public, on the simple grounds that their ambition was perceived to be fundamentally unachievable. Other examples including Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation and JFK’s “Before this decade is out, [we will] land a man on the moon”. Both of these were hugely ambitious feats that were shouted down at the time. But both Lincoln and JFK were ingenious, tenacious and determined. And both came true.

In the end, America didn’t build 50,000 planes a year. They built 100,000. It gave the Air Force a fleet that won the war. We owe our liberty to ambition.

AMBITION: The Name Game of Life

I was thinking the other day about my life, what I plan to do with it and what I have already done. What is my goal in life, what do I strive towards? I soon realised that really, I had no idea. It is not like I do not have a clue of what I want to do next. There were plenty of interesting assemblies in school that piqued my interest, but I had no ‘end goal’, no target that I can definitely say I have hit by the time I die. So, I decided to search for a good goal and I created a simple criterion by which my goal would be decided.

Quite simply, by the end of my life, I wanted to have had as large an impact as possible on the world and its people. That is simple enough, but it raises a larger, somewhat more insightful question. How does one measure their impact? What could you use to tell how much of an impact a person has had on the world? With this in mind, I sat and thought and I believe I have come up with an answer that suits me.

There is one thing that every person has and it is the only thing we know about some of the oldest recorded people, from the Babylonian kings to Biblical figures. A name is the first thing we are given and is the last thing that we are identified by. It seems quite logical really that the more a person has done in the world, the longer their name would be remembered for, even after all their physical achievements have faded into dust. With that in mind, I found my goal. That I, at the end of my life, will have a name that holds so much reputation and power that it echoes through the ages. It is funny though, I realised that this way of thinking makes life seem like a little bit of a game, whereby every person has to try and last the longest through time. Maybe it is just me, but this makes life just that little bit more enjoyable and certainly makes me more enthusiastic about living through it.

AMBITION: So this is me

So this is me.

Girl with a number of friends,

Never knowing if this ends,

A day goes by, same different faces I see,

But still, they don’t know the inside of me.

Sometimes I’m talking to them on the phone,

Other times I’m wishing to be alone,

But mainly I just want to be happy,

That’s the only thing I want to be.

You see, I’m not any indifferent,

I can’t choose or decide, I just can’t,

For when the night arrives,

I know they’re still going on with their lives.

While I just sit on my bed and take a rest,

And still trying my very best,

That the aspirations and dreams in my fantasy

Will finally not just be my imagines but

Will finally be in my reality.

AMBITION: Choices

It is often a scary thing to think about your future. For so long my parents, teachers and family friends would ask me what I want to do when I’m older and my answer is forever changing. At 5 it was a ballerina, at 10 it was a vet and now I’m set on being a journalist. My parents are constantly telling me that the only way my dream of being a journalist will become a reality is by working hard, but I tend to disagree, I think it is all about ambition.

As somebody who has very strong views I am very good at getting my point across through speaking. My mum told me a few years ago that rather than arguing with people about what I believe to be right, I should start writing it all down. Taking this advice on board, I now run a blog with random articles that offer my opinion on matters I believe to be important. One of my friends asked me why I would voluntarily want to do more work. I replied by saying it is not work to me because I enjoy it and writing is something I would choose to do in my spare time. This is where ambition is key, if I was asked to do a bunch of maths problems in my spare time I would politely decline, I hate maths and therefore have no desire to spend my time doing it. However I am an ambitious writer and the drive I have to achieve in my writing is the tool that moves my pen on the paper and allows me to complete my articles.

People often think they should go into a career that requires skills that they are good at. If you are good at maths be an accountant, if you are good at sports be a personal trainer. This is something I am guilty of, I am very good at English, and it has always been my strongest subject. In fact at my year 2 parents evening my teacher told my parents “numbers are not her thing, words are.” My mum always reminds me of this, the other day I asked her how I can convince my dad to lift a punishment he had given me, she said “use your words,” so I wrote him a 600 word letter with all the reasons why my punishment should be lifted and it worked. The point I am trying to get across is that yes, ability is a very important element of success, however without ambition it will get you nowhere. For example, my dad is a very talented trader; he works in fashion and is good at his job. However he does not enjoy what he does, he makes the sales but he lacks passion for his job and he believes that the reason he has always stayed at the same level in his job (never being promoted) is that he has no love for his job.

Being a sixth form student, I have become aware of many mistakes that adults make whilst giving us advice on our future. They often encourage us to stay with the academic route, go to university which will enable us to get a highly paid job. I believe that the youth of today are not told enough something that is perhaps the most important thing to remember while thinking about the future – we all have choices. The different paths one can go down are endless – leaving school and going to college, getting an apprenticeship and starting to earn money straight away or indeed carry on with further education. Personally, I love education and want to stay learning more for as long as possible, for this reason I definitely want to go to university. However many students go to university even though they lack ambition, they have no idea what they want to do afterwards, they just go because they were told it was the best option and the most highly regarded. This is wrong, although university is highly regarded, having passion and fire in your eyes is just as much appreciated in interviews. Some kids just are not academic and do not enjoy the rigid structure of school, they would much rather be earning money and going out with their friends. This is fine, their ambition may lie in things that are not academic; adults need to encourage this more in the youth of today.

I am very fortunate in the fact that my parents are proud of me regardless of what I choose to do. They told me at the beginning of this academic year that although I achieved excellent GCSE results I should only go to 6^th form if I really want to, if my ambition and drive lies elsewhere they would support me. However, I chose to stay on at JFS because I love it and I am who I am because of the school. I have a strong sense of identity and I know what makes me tick. I am an ambitious writer and like to inspire others with my writing, whilst also analysing other’s work in my English Literature classes and learning about different styles. JFS has given me the tools to take my ambitions further and I hope I graduate successfully from a university of my choice and go into the field of my choice. I am aware that although I want to be a journalist now, this could always change but I know that whatever I choose to do in the future, my ambition and the support from my loved ones will help me to reach my goals.

AMBITION: Is all ambition healthy?

Ambition can be deceptive. We often think we are doing things and thinking thoughts from our own independent decisions based on our ambitions, when in actual fact we could be fulfilling the ambitions of others around us or even the ambitions biologically instilled into our human nature. Mauss and Descartes would both argue that humans can form their own altruistic ambitions from their thoughts. Darwin would disagree, probably joke about pretentious French philosophers, laugh, and say that every human decision ultimately comes from an evolutionary standpoint and a thirst for survival.

The problem with speaking about ambition per se, is that we can never really understand the ambitions of others until we can understand our own. In his latest play, The Hard Problem, Tom Stoppard explores the “hard problem” of consciousness which continues to plague scientists to this very day - how have we evolved to think, experience, and create our own ambitions? And are these ambitions altruistic, egotistic, or simply an illusion?

Prior to 1951, an ant which repeatedly climbed a blade of grass to reach the tip could appear to have its own ambition – perhaps it sought the best view of the outer world; maybe it wanted achieve excellence within the field of grass-climbing. Yet between the years of 1951-53, Wendell Krull and C.R. Mapes published a number of studies about a parasite named Dicrocoelium dendriticum, explaining the strange behaviour of the grass-climbing ant Olympians. According to these papers, the parasite aims to use a cow’s liver as a host, but has to go through a series of other hosts, including ants, to reach the liver. The parasite begins its life in the liver before mating and delivering its eggs through the cow’s faeces. The faeces are then consumed by snails which also excrete the hatched parasite and leave it in the grass, ready for ants to ingest. As soon as an ant ingests the parasite, it starts behaving differently. This is because the parasite causes a change to the sub-esophageal ganglion of the ant (a cluster of nerve cells which affect its behaviour). The infected ant will now feel a compulsion, indeed an ambition, to climb the tallest blade of grass available. This ambition only drives the ant because the parasite wants the ant to have a greater chance of being ingested by a grazing cow in order for the parasite to conclude its life cycle, back in a cow’s liver.

Although Krull and Mapes’ findings seem removed from The Hard Problem, there is much to learn about the morality of ambitions from an infected ant. People can achieve greatness with conflicting ambitions; and conflicting ambitions can often lead to greatness. It is important to realise that ambitions we think of as our own can be mutated by the ambitions of those around us. As a sixteen year old student, my personal ambitions could be influenced surreptitiously by the ambitions of my parents or teachers. Much like the proverbial ant, I may be climbing a career ladder in order to satisfy the whims of others. Whilst it is important to aim for greatness, it is equally important to notice the source of our ambitions. If not, one may climb all the way to the top of a blade of grass, only to be eaten by a cow.

AMBITION: The Story

As I walk, never looking behind

Through sunshine and rain

Fog and snow, not stopping for a second

           

My ambitions stay strong

I know what I want

I won’t fail to lack willpower

I’ll fulfil my dream

I’ll reach my goal

I’ll stay true to myself

Only you can write your story

Your story is your life

And it’s up to yourself to write the best story there is

That’s my ambition

Write a good story

So I’m in search of material, and I’m writing every step of the way…

AMBITION: Achieving the Impossible

Different people have different ambitions. Some want to be rich. Some wish to become leaders of the country to gain honour. Some desire to be great scientists. I too have my own ambition.

My aim in life isn’t to be rich or to be a leader or even to be famous; it is just to do the impossible. I’m mainly led by a spirit of adventure.

Has anyone ever told you that you can’t do something because it’s impossible? Or that your ambition is farfetched and unlikely to come true? They’re probably wrong because impossible is just another term for lazy people who don’t want to push themselves towards their farfetched ambitions.

This results in easy ambitions.

People would say my ambition is farfetched, unlikely – impossible but I’m willing to take a leap into the land of impossible events. My ambition is to stop world hunger.

This is a great ambition of mine as I want to make sure everyone has a meal to eat every day because starvation, lack of water is a terrible thing. I hate to see poverty not in England but all over the world and it sickens me how hardly anyone does anything about it. And I know it’s hard but even if I do the smallest change to stop it, one generation my ambition will be fulfilled.

AMBITION: The Flame of Ambition

Challenges

Desire

The path to success

Gaining achievement

Being the person you want to be

Ambition is an everlasting flame

The flame is lit

And has to keep on burning

It needs practice

Patience

Determination to stay alight

I want to be a journalist

I want to travel round the world

I want to have a family

I want to be happy

I want to keep the flame alight

I aspire to be a journalist

Reading exciting articles

Listening to interesting news stories

Seeing where the stories are written

Keeps my flame alight

My flame dies out

My dreams disappear

The world is full of darkness

I am not the person I want to be

without the flame of ambition

Ambition

The flame of ambition

Shines brightly through the window

AMBITION: Never give up

Always try your hardest to achieve your goal, the            

More you try the better you will be.                                                                                    

Be determined and you will never fail.                                                                                         

If you are rejected,                                                                             

Try again until you succeed.                                                                                             

If you want something bad enough it is only,                                                                                           

One goal that you have to set your mind to so…                                                                                            

Never give up!

AMBITION: Finding the right balance

AMBITION means a desire, aspiration, or eagerness for success.

An ambitious attitude may lead one to triumph regardless of what challenges are put in front of that person.  Having talent without ambition is not enough to succeed. People who have ambition tend to work hard and make sacrifices necessary to reach their goals and aspirations.

Ambition allows one to fight for whatever he or she believes in.  The drive to succeed in order to achieve drives people to stay focused and determined.   Ambitious people understand that there are no ‘shortcuts in life’.

However, too much ambition or uncontrolled ambition may be negative and harmful because it can make one greedy or addicted to power or money.  Such people lose sight of their goal and become obsessed with the ambition itself.  For example, during World War II, Adolf Hitler had ambition to conquer the world and to make one Aryan, supreme, master race.  His wicked ways and his obsessive over-ambition ultimately brought him and his Nazi party nowhere.

A blatant desire to create a ...

M aster race ... This led Hitler and the Nazis to

B  elieve that they were superior and they wrongly

I  magined that everyone else was inferior.

T  heir uncontrolled ambition brought them

I  nto severe conflict with their neighbors and, ultimately, to the

O  outbreak of WWII.  Their wicked ways got them

N  owhere!!!

AMBITION: Miuccia Prada

Ambition can be defined in many ways.

Its literal definition states it is a strong desire to do or achieve something. I, however, prefer to define this term with an example, a woman; Miuccia Prada.

Her path to becoming the Chief Executive Officer of Prada is rather unique.  As the youngest granddaughter of  Mario Prada, who created Prada making high-end luxury luggage in 1913,  Miuccia was never predicted to continue the family business. She studied at the University of Milan where she completed a Ph.D. in Political Science. As a feminist and member of the Communist Party, Miuccia spent the next 5 years training as a mime at Piccolo Teatro in Milan.

At the age of 29 in 1978,  she decided to enter the world of fashion by joining the family business. Soon she released her first designs as a line of black, lightweight backpacks in 1985. Instantly gaining popularity and recognition, she created her debut collection of womenswear in 1988. Introducing a more affordable line called Miu Miu in 1992, Miuccia rapidly gained success as well as the Council of Fashion Designers of America International Award in 1993.

Today the fashion empire is worth $11.1 billion,  placing Miuccia at number 139 on the Forbes Billionaire list.

Ambition is her second name. To achieve a Ph.D, train as a mime, and create an empire that influences much of the fashion world today, must take ambition, passion and hard work. Yet the most intriguing belief behind Prada as a brand, is her disregard of trends and drive to stand out; to do things differently. Prada is devoted to fearlessness , and Miuccia constantly reinvents her identity as a feminist and an advocate for change through her collections. She says , “Fashion is an incredible tool for understanding people, for understanding the world.”

AMBITION: Through the Lens of Film

"There's no place like home". There’s also no experience like watching a movie whether it is at the cinema or watching it on a DVD at home. My ambition is to work in movies for a variety of reasons; such as the talent of the cast and crew, the marvellous visual effects and the experience of watching a film. I have loved films for many years as they continue to wow and take you to a beautiful place.

Despite my love of movies now, at an early age I used to hate films. The giant big cinema had an evil striking presence while the movies themselves provoked either tears, screams or yawns from me. However the turning point came back in the summer of 2003 when I saw Piglet’s Big Movie on the big screen as I fell in love with the movie and multiplex immediately. But my family may have lived to regret trying to get me invested in going to the cinema as I dragged them a further 6 times to see the same movie at the cinema; and have made my family see millions of movies since my love for films occurred. However, I still had a few fears about the cinema when I was 6 which led to me running around the cinema screaming as I thought I heard a noise from under the carpet while leaving the cinema screen - but it turned out the noise was probably my imagination nonetheless this shows the impact films have had on me. Films continued to develop into a massive passion for me and they are now my ambition because of the magic they have brought to me since a young age.

There are many different reasons that I like movies. First of all the stories are enthralling, telling tales of magical moments with the themes of humour, sadness and fun running through them while other films stories leaves your jaws dropping as they unveil their magnificent twists. The stories let your imagination run loose as your eyes witness many masterpieces. The technical achievements of films are also amazing, displaying how the film industry has developed over the years and films with amazing technical achievements, such as Avatar and Gravity, are spectacular movies due to the striking visual elements the films contain. It also feels weird to love films with these technical accomplishments when my 3 year old self would be running quicker than Usain Bolt away from these pictures.

I also love the experience of going to the cinema as it is a great and enchanting place where dreams can come true. From seeing all the film posters glow as you walk to your screen to the trailers convincing you that you need to spend more money to come and see these films immediately: the whole experience is truly exciting. The best part, though, is being able to watch the films on a massive screen with fantastic sound quality while experiencing all emotions and falling in love with what is in front of your eyes. Even movies that are bad can lead to fun movie experiences such as my Grandma and I joking about how bad the film is to walking out of the screen giving you a sense of relief. Also the amount of formats you can watch films in are incredible; ranging from the gigantic IMAX cinemas which are the best place to watch movies with great visual effects to the local cinemas which have nice feelings and the art-house cinemas which are comfy and feel like you are being transported back to 1950’s Hollywood. I love the experience of a cinema so much that my ambition used to be to work at a cinema selling popcorn so I could see all the latest films for free.

However watching the film is not the only part of the movie business that gives me an aspiration to get involved in the future; I also love the box office runs and seeing how well films are doing. The unpredictability and shocking box office runs makes the industry really fun to track and in my time there has been many mind-blowing box office runs such as Avatar becoming the biggest grossing film ever worldwide, The Avengers smashing all box office predictions to score the highest ever opening in America and surprise smashes like The Hunger Games taking the world by storm. The movie business still provides entertainment today with a recent example being American Sniper making bucket loads at the American box office as it looks like to be the biggest film of 2014 which nobody saw coming even two months ago. Another great part about the box office is the cultural impacts certain films and genres have had in our world such as superheroes becoming one of the biggest trends again and frozen suddenly sweeping into all parents and children’s minds last year.

My dream and ambition for the future is to work in the movie industry and I am ambiguously certain on what I want to do because of the many areas I love of movies. Part of me wants to track the box office runs to see what’s hot and what’s not with the public, part of me wants to star and direct in Oscar-worthy movies as I get invited into the luxury of Hollywood and attend all the best festivals such as the Oscars. Another part of me wants to work at a movie studio deciding which movies should be greenlit and the important decisions that the movie studios have to make and another part of me wants to write movies that people will love and find inspirational, funny and great. One thing is for certain though and that is that I want to work in the movie business and I want to make my dream come true such as dreams from movies like WALL.E where he makes the world a better and cleaner place and Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom where Nelson Mandela wants to help the world and to free it of racism. Despite being an animated character [WALL.E] or a real life inspirational figure [Mandela], both of these characters share the idea to make the world a better place and achieve their dreams and hopes. I want to make this world a better place by giving people love through movies which is another reason movies are my ambition.

These are many reasons why films are my ambitions and I want to inspire a generation through this medium of entertainment. I definitely want to do something in films as they are my ambition and I adore them so much and even though I don’t know what yet, “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get".

AMBITION: A Definition

The definition of ambition is to have a strong desire or achieve

But it is only what you make of it and perceive

Many people come and go trying

But if you don’t push yourself, the empty goals just lie undying

The reason we push ourselves may not be so unknown

Isn’t everyone trying to get to reach the throne

Always make your end goal to persevere

Never lose focus, even if it gets unclear

Don’t worry if you can’t make your goals go away like a magician

As long as you always have a bit of ambition

AMBITION: A strong desire

Ambition is all about having a strong desire to do or achieve something and the only way to succeed those goals you set yourself in life is by being eager and having a convincing dedication.

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”
— Charles Kingsley

You don’t have to have a big ambition for a person to be ambitious it could be something as small as trying to look on the bright side.

Things don’t die easily – poem about ambition

Every morning when I wake up,

I look forward to seeing what awaits me.

What goals can I achieve today?

Drawbacks aren’t a problem

It will always be there,

I have the ability to plan my destiny

I have the control

I have my ambition. 

AMBITION: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

It’s a question that everyone heard multiple times in their childhood. The answers are usually fairly common, with doctors, lawyers and athletes all being named. However, not one person will ever say that when they grow up, they want to be happy. From a young age, children’s ambitions in life are to be successful rather than to enjoy life; a concept that is fundamentally flawed. What good is it to become an incredibly successful in your chosen field if you spend every free minute you have working, rather than enjoying life? Money is a currency where it’s only value is the one we assign it. Ultimately, no amount of money can be exchanged for happiness. Regardless of how rich and successful you are, a businessman worth billions is not guaranteed to be happier than someone who is unemployed. Likewise, money cannot be exchanged for longer to live. We only have a limited time on Earth, and the person constantly working to try and further his fortune is likely to miss out on the experiences and pleasures that life offers. Yes, a successful entrepreneur is more likely to have their legacy remembered than a shop worker; but that doesn’t matter. When I die, I’m not interested in other people knowing that I lived – I just want to know myself that I truly did.

AMBITION: A new cure for health?

As of November 2014, my ambition was to be able to go to school five days a week and see my friends and family on the weekends. At a first glance, that may not seem very ambitious. It is hardly a ground breaking, unique or inspiring ambition. However, this is the first thing I learnt about ambition; your ambitions have to change along with your life.

I’ve always been fairly ambitious. That year I’d got good grades, been a leader on summer camp, done exercise (well, a bit) and made new friends. Everything was going well until the beginning of the school year in September, when I started to get some strange new “ambitions” or replacements of my usual ones. My ambitions consisted of filling up my water bottle between every lesson without being late, planning my day around walking up and down stairs as little as possible, making GP appointments, constantly eating as much food as I could and trying to only stop for a break twice on my ten minute walk home from school. I was constantly going to the GP with different problems and I was lethargic the whole time, even struggling to pull open doors at school and concentrate on lessons because I was pre-occupied with hunger. I started to have mean thoughts about my friends over the slightest thing and immediately felt guilty. AlI I wanted to do was eat and sleep and I usually cried every day when I got in from school from sheer frustration of being so tired. I was envious of all my friends who seemed to have so much more energy than me. I became increasingly self-conscious about my body as my collarbone and ribs became more and more pronounced and my arms and legs looked like those of a child. People always commented that I looked tired and my skin and hair was becoming dull. Feeling lazy, greedy, grumpy and self-conscious, I sunk into a depression.

After a week of feeling particularly awful, I felt really ill one night and my mum booked me in to see the GP the next day. Shockingly, I was diagnosed with Diabetic Ketoacidosis. This is how around twenty percent of people unfortunately find out they have Type 1 Diabetes. I was rushed to A&E where I stayed in hospital for five days. I do not wish to go into detail, but the experience, especially the first night, was extremely painful, scary and consequently traumatic, giving me nightmares about blood, needles and drips for long afterwards.

When I eventually came home, I was very weak, tired and underweight. All of the symptoms and weird obsessions I have described above were linked to my onset of diabetes, not depression as I had thought. It was here that my ambitions changed; no longer was I thinking about my UCAS application and grades, but getting healthy again. But luckily I had a lot of ambition.

I had to get used to lots of new things; injecting myself 5 times a day, counting carbohydrates in every mouthful of food I ate, measuring my blood sugar levels, being able to move around properly, telling everyone what had happened, gaining weight, to name a few. This took extra ambition since I was totally unprepared for this as it was a huge shock and I had to adapt when I was still very ill. But luckily I had the support of other’s ambition too. My parents visited me in hospital covering nearly every available visiting hour, learnt about my medication with me, but generally gave me lots of hugs and encouragement whenever I felts angry, defeated or traumatised by my experiences and situation. My medical team gave me care by discussing any problems I had and tweaking my doses of insulin. My cousins, one of whom is also diabetic, have been extremely supportive of me, coming to visit me to give me advice, subscribing me to a diabetes magazine and still sending me the odd texts to see how my blood sugar levels are doing. There are many more people such as my friends, boyfriend, family, rabbi, heads of year, friends of my parents and school counsellor who have all taken an interest in learning about my diabetes. My friends and I have even made a game out of competing to see who can guess the number nearest to my blood sugar level, complete with “Oooooh”s and drumrolls as my glucometer shows the countdown. And sharing my stories about where I’ve had hypos (where you start shaking because you’re blood sugar is too low) are entertaining. The one at two in the morning and the one in the Primark changing rooms are my personal favourites.

Mine and other’s ambitions for me are for me to be healthy. This would have seemed basic a year ago but I learnt that goals have to change due to events that you cannot change. I still have the odd nightmare or high blood sugar reading but I am much better now. I learnt that many people working together towards the same ambition means that they can achieve a better outcome than one individual. Relying on other people to be understanding and helpful isn’t at all as bad as I thought it was and it helped me get closer to the people I love the most. Although my ambitions may not be as important as others diabetics such as Theresa May and diabetic athletes, they are an inspiration to me in that I know that although diabetes has held me back in the past, I still have the same potential  and ambition to achieve things on the same level as them. The most important thing I have learnt is that sometimes you have to aim for the seemingly small things in order to get you back on track for aiming for the big things. Thank you to those who have helped me along the way.

AMBITION: The right attitude

Ambition is the most significant device needed to achieve success. It is more important than talent or resources. A determined attitude can lead anyone to victory and contentment, regardless of what is put in front of them. To have the will, the dream and the courage to achieve the task set, will get you a lot further in life than any ‘natural’ talent or skill. An ambitious attitude is the essential thing. With an ambitious attitude the outcomes are endless and the gratification achieved will be greater than the countless hours put in. The skills can come naturally but the fight, will, courage and dream to be the best, overpower the talent. Talent is not talent without the ambitious driving force to work. Anyone can have ambition and the ambition can lead to talent if you do not let the hard work destroy you. How many underdogs have achieved more than previous champions? They have achieved more as they have taken their ambition to the next level, pushed themselves to the breaking point and beyond. As they improve, they want it more. They work harder than before, they pressure themselves more and they achieve more. The people who are at the top have made sacrifices to achieve their dreams. Sacrifices that they may regret, because they missed events, but at the end of the day they have more than the average person. They have their goal. Ambition allows us to fight for what we believe in. No short-cuts taken and no distractions.  Dedicated to their goals and the will to work harder: mentally and physically. Ambition always has results depending on how hard you push yourself to your breaking point and how much more you are willing to give after you nearly gave up.

AMBITION: Willpower can overcome any hurdle

What is ambition?        
It is when you look into the starry night                      
and not see the glow of the stars upon the darkness of space
but your goals,
targets and future achievements.
It is when you see yourself beyond the foreseeable
ambition is the difference between your current self
and what you see as your image once you can accomplish no more.

One with no ambition cannot accomplish anything
as they see no outcome nor improvement from any opportunities presented 
they do not build up an education or any skills for future use
because when think about themselves in several years (or more)
they see the same person
they see someone on the same level
someone unimproved,
 someone worse.

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” 

― Salvador Dalís

One with high ambitions will accomplish far more
they will make use of any opportunities that would bring them nearer their goal
an ambitious person would build up an education and useful skills
because when they picture themselves years from then
they see someone on a higher level someone on a faraway platform
far higher than them at that time
someone who is better than they are.

“Because there was a hunger in me to see everything and do everything. I wanted to be everyone I saw. I wasn't enough for me. Can you understand that?”
― Sidney Sheldon, Bloodline

Ambition is the understanding that willpower can overcome any hurdle.         

AMBITION: A Gymnast's Dream

There is always someone better than me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll give up,

There is always something to bring me down, but nevertheless I get up.

Gymnastics is my dream and dance is my hope,

It is why I am, what I am and how I cope.

Sweat dries, blood clots, bones heal,

This is my motto.

Jump off the beam, flip off the bars,

Follow your dreams and reach for the stars.

But don’t tell me the sky's the limit,

When there are footsteps on the moon to prove it.

You can do anything as long as you believe.

I can’t always choose the music life plays for me,

But I can choose how I dance to it.

This is why the sky isn’t the limit.

AMBITION: My Problematic Fave

There is a phrase, often used on the social media website ‘tumblr’, when one refers to something as their ‘problematic fave’. This is when you like something a lot, but it has issues that distress you or you disagree with. This is what ambition is to me.

I’ve always been pretty ambitious in terms of what I would like to do or accomplish when I am older. Such ambitions include becoming an astronaut (every five year old child’s dream) and a postal worker (blame my childhood obsession with Postman Pat!). Ever since I really started to get into reading for pleasure though, all my ambition has been geared towards writing. Whether it’s through books, news articles, poetry, features, opinion pieces or reviews, I have spent the best part of the last nine years dreaming of sharing my thoughts and ideas with the rest of the world. My ambition to accomplish these things has made certain that I always have something that I am passionate about to work towards.

Unfortunately, nothing comes without caveats. The reason that ambition is problematic for me is that it requires effort. Many people will probably dismiss this issue as me being lazy, or the product of my generation – a group of young people that spends all their time hunched in front of a computer screen, in a darkened room, staring blankly at funny cat photos on the internet. This would be an incorrect assumption to make. Effort is, for most people, a very limited resource. One can only do so much before all they are physically capable of doing is hunching over a humorous cat photo filled screen. This a particular issue for my generation, as more is expected from young people, academically, than ever before. More and more children attend university than ever before (which is great – I love that there are more opportunities for people to learn about the things they are passionate about) which means that everything is more competitive. In order to enter into a field like journalism, one has to get a vast amount of experience in an industry where there is little room for the inexperienced to get any. This makes getting anywhere in the world of writing incredibly difficult due to the need to push one’s way into a system that is guarded by a force field built from multiple catch-22s.

The main reason why my ambition is to be a writer is because it is a broad enough field that I can incorporate most of the many things I have a passion for. The second major catch-22 that blocks me from achieving my goals is that in order to find time to improve my writing skills and gain experience, there is far less time available to spend on the things I actually want to write about: music, film and other forms of media that require one to sacrifice their time in order that they may be knowledgeable enough to give their opinion on.

At this point I have covered several things that contribute to my effort-o-metre. It has now reached a state where the effort levels are so high that the effort-o-metre has reached critical capacity. I have no energy left to write, listen to or play music, watch and analyse films or read enough to improve my writing, let alone work hard for my upcoming exams. This is where we come to the great the great thing about ‘problematic faves’, they’re important enough that when one’s effort-o-metre is full to bursting, there is still enough motivation left to put in that extra bit of effort even if you have none left.

AMBITION: From Evolution to Chocolate - Ambition’s Power

Life is full of ambition. If it weren’t for our intrepid ancestors who first ventured out from their hunter-gatherer ways and into an agricultural revolution, civilisation as we know it could never have been achieved. If it weren’t for the audacious scientists at NASA and the Soviet Space Programme, man would never have set foot on the moon; and, if it weren’t for the aspiring Mr John Cadbury, mankind would never have sampled the sweet, blissful taste of a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bar. Ambition is what motivates people and makes them strive to make the world a better place, be it to feed humankind, or supply us with divine chocolate.

Ambition resonates with me. Ever since I first read a copy of The Times newspaper, I have yearned to follow in the footsteps of the great correspondents John Simpson, Sydney Schanberg and John Swain. In fact, this is why I am writing this very piece of writing now, because my ambition is to become a journalist of the highest order (Pulitzer Prize included). The American academic and former reporter Samantha Power once said, ‘I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world’; this is a mantra (I hope) all credible journalists hold dear to their great profession and one I hope to carry with me into the future as I strive to become a more talented writer.

Possessing an ambition is a gift. There are too many people in this world who seem to be content with living life for the sake of living. Humans possess an incredible ability to actually be aware of their own existence. With this consciousness, man has the capability of striving for greatness. This is why ambition should not be taken for granted and why it is infuriating to see people who don’t want to make a difference, who don’t see the need to improve the world, or who don’t even want to make something of themselves. There is always the argument that those with fewer opportunities just can’t afford to aspire to achieve great things for civilisation. But I say our modern, developed and globalised world brings such bright openings to one and all that each and every human in the established world, regardless of their background or status, can aspire to do astounding things. Ambition drives greatness and greatness makes our big, brilliant blue marble even better.

AMBITION: The pressures of academia

There was a period of time in the last academic year in which I focused on only one of my GCSE subjects. It was a subject that had eluded me since the days of primary school, when my classmates proceeded onto the “fun” challenges of extra work and I was left staring at a blank calculator screen. It was, up until year 11, universally acknowledged that I couldn’t do maths. I just couldn’t.

I hated the numbers. I hated how somehow the alphabet got involved with all the numbers. And as if that wasn’t complicated enough, somehow the Ancient Greek alphabet got involved with the numbers too and there were special signs to show different things and I couldn’t keep track of any of them because they all looked the same and it felt like I was drawing squiggles on past papers and getting marks for it anyway.

By Year 11, I was predicted a B. This letter always frustrated me whenever it was mentioned by tutors or teachers or parents, because I felt I could do better. And I could. I had spent so much time telling myself that I couldn’t do maths that I failed to realize how many people were worse at it than me. And so I worked, with the help of my selfless teacher who gave up some of her lunchtimes to help me, a friend in the year above who went over any questions I was stuck on and my sister, who threw revision books at me like I was the middle of a dartboard and she wanted the perfect score. I stayed up late every night during study leave going over what I didn’t understand. I started maths revision earlier than any other subject. I worked so hard that I started daydreaming about what my reaction would be if I opened my exam results envelope and saw an A in maths staring back at me.

I got an A. And I was so happy. I was ecstatic, crazily so for about three weeks until the excitement wore off and there was no one who hadn’t already heard my exact UMS mark in each of the specific modules I had taken.

GCSE’s are important. They require work, knowledge and dedication. Over the past academic year, I had managed to prove to myself that I was able to do maths and that I was able to get a good grade in it, but I stopped focusing on everything else. My fundamental problem with my GCSE grade was this: I had started to define myself by my own level of productivity. What happened if I hadn’t gotten an A? How would I have taken the news? Would a grade lower than I wanted mean that I wasn’t good enough?

The ruthless way society puts pressure on pupils is destructive. We focus so much on grades that they sometimes feel like they matter more than we do. Henry Thoreau is famously quoted to have said that, “ what you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals”. I’m normally not a fan of aphorisms, but I believe Thoreau was right in this instance. My ambition, in this case, did not matter. It would not have mattered if I didn’t get the grade I wanted because I worked for it, and revised for it, and the end result proved more than my ability to satisfy criteria on a sheet. 

AMBITION: 'When I grow up...'

When I was 3, I wanted to be a cat (though I unfortunately suffered from being human).

When I was 5, I wanted to play for Arsenal (though I'm terrible at football).

When I was 8, I wanted to be a spy (though I based my future life entirely off James Bond).

When I was 10, I wanted to front a rock band (though I can't sing, dance, or play an instrument).

When I was 12, I wanted to be an author (though I get bored of anything I write beyond 2000 words).

When I was 14, I wanted to join the Peace Corps (though I realised the impact they make is minimal).

Now that I'm 17, I want to be a journalist (and yet I still feel conflicted about it).

Ambition has always seemed like a tricky issue – we have one life, and not everything we want can be achieved through it. Beyond that, much of what we want simply may be too difficult to achieve. Whether we like it or not, we have to do something that will earn us money. I'll be honest: I have, on many separate occasions, romanticised my future. The recurring vision of my future is me as an ex-pat, moving from city to city, living beyond constraints, but I know that that probably will not be the case.

The wide-eyed idealist wants to change the world, and more recently I have discovered that changing the world may be easier than it seems. One does not have to lead a revolution to do it, but simply know where to put their time and money. If I were to be a journalist, I may have a platform from which to advocate a specific cause. If I make money, I would be able to donate large sums to really effective charities. So my ambition has become to do my bit to make a mark on the world which to some extent heals it, as large as I can make it, even if it still is very small.

AMBITION: Its all in the Mind

This is an article about ambition and my ambition. It is my belief that anyone, of any intelligence, can strive to their ambition with the right mind-set. An example would be Albert Einstein; Einstein was not the smartest in his class at school and was known to not do well in examinations. Of course, we know that Einstein became a renowned theoretical physicist who is considered the father of quantum physics. Einstein famously said "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”. This quote gives us an important message: learn from your mistakes to better your future. Einstein is telling us that with this mind-set we can strive to great things.

My personal ambition is still ambiguous, but I know what I want to do will be to do with some kind of science--specifically astrophysics--and will have some kind of connection to space exploration. Since I was a young child, I have always been deeply intrigued by space and the universe in which we exist within. In fact, with new programmes emerging planning to colonise other planets like Mars, I often contemplate whether I would want to move there in the future. This may seem unlikely to some that we will live on other planets in the next fifty years or so, but with the recent boom of technological advancement it is highly likely that by 2030 there will be humans living on Mars.

Most people when looking at the night sky simply see a plethora of bright stars. I, however, feel a colossal sense of awe as I peer into the grandiose universe. I see the stars as opportunities - opportunities for life, science and advancement of mankind. I wonder whether advanced life, such as us, exists elsewhere in the universe, and if they exist whether we will find them in the next century.

As you can see thus far, my ambition is vastly strong for what I want to do when I am older. Nevertheless, throughout my life I hear pessimistic comments on how in order to become an astrophysicist, astronaut or engineer I need to be the 'best of the best' and need to do the difficultly deemed further maths which many fail at. I avoid computing these comments, however, as I have had the incredible realisation that with the right mind-set, and the right amount of work, anything is possible.

AMBITION: An Ode

Inspiration begins the trail, excited for what’s to come

Innocent curiosity and joy, create one

Seed in his heart for the old oak to rise,

Of Wisdom, boy your ambition, will win the Prize.

An unclear path,

The road less travelled - others take the highway, already found

Looking baffled.

But boy, oh boy, continue this journey; staying true deep inside

Crystalize, ambition, will win the Prize.

Study. Commence. Work.

Passion. Sweat. Dirt

Overgrowth crowds the forest,

 dark shadow  cast upon the way, rings beneath his eyes.

Bags from obsession and determination.

Commitment and Visualise, ambition will win the Prize.

Sacrifice.

On hands and knees. Plough through the Grit

“You’ll make it if you’re lucky, young Brit.”

One chance to write the book of life,

The Game no one can escape,

Until the ultimate escape-

…It was all just a game…

Highscore! You Won the prize..