Ambition Definition

My Definition of Ambition

As a child growing up on the South-Side of Chicago, I never really understood how people had the energy to stay in school and graduate or go to work each day. I honestly didn’t really think there was much after 8th grade, except for dead ends of life. In reality, I believed that there was no way for someone to achieve anything unless they we’re born into an environment where they were provided with the materials needed to get there. I also believed that the way you were born, whether you were born rich or poor, that’s the way you will live for the rest of your life. How many 12 year olds really think this way? How sad is it that a 12 year old had no inspiration to want to become something better than their circumstances?

Maybe not many people find something wrong with that, but in the eyes of a 12 year old, the world should be full of opportunity and no limits. Even though I had a closed mindset, it wasn’t to late for me to change the way I thought about life. It wasn’t until I reached an understanding of determination, motivation and ambition, that I finally opened my eyes to opportunity and dreams.

Motivation hadn’t become apart of my life until I went into my sophomore year of high school. It wasn’t something I was born with, it was something that had to be taught to me by people who really understood what it meant come from nothing and succeed later on in life. Later on in my freshman year I had been exposed to different opportunities and different people. I was exposed to a world where I believed it was impossible to reach but visible to see. The encounter that led me to change my pessimistic mindset was the day I saw two of my very own friends grow up in the same territory but yet end up in two different planets. Rebekah and Kahlil grew up in the same middle class home, with two parents and 4 children. Rebekah was the oldest of the children and Kahlil was the second oldest, they were only a year apart. Even though they came from the same surroundings Rebekah had the upper hand on Kahlil because she had ambition and motivation, something he didn’t have. In result of his lack of self confidence and ambition to achieve, he got into a lot of trouble in school and eventually dropped out before his sophomore year in high school, however his older sister went on to graduate from high school and go to college on a full ride scholarship. The world that Kahlil couldn’t see himself in was the same world that his sister was living in right in front of his face. At that moment I realized how important ambition was to the human mind and how it could change a person’s life.

Though I had a peak of what ambition could do for one’s entire outlook on life, I had to discover what motivated me.

As I started to look around me and who I was surrounded by, I realized that in my neighborhood I was surrounded by lower middle class and poor people. All of which who did not have motivation or ambition to carry on throughout life themselves, so they settled for what was in front of them instead of reaching for what was above them but was possible to reach with motivation and determination. When I also saw how my family struggled to pay bills, buy toiletries, or even sometimes struggle with buying food that made me check my own reality and come to my senses to know there has to be more to life then struggling. Another factor that motivates me is I never want to relive my past or let my own history repeat itself. I live by this quote to simply remind myself that I can do better than what I came from. I want to achieve success so that my children can have someone who leaves the impression of triumph in their mind. I want my children to realize that there is more to life than the eye meets and I never want them to have to beg or ask for anything the way I did as a child. Furthermore, I also learned about myself in the process of finding my motivation, and I learned that when I am rejected, I am driven to achieve more. The encounter that made me very obsessive over achieving success was when one day I stayed at church later than expected and I was in need of a ride home because my parents were at work. I asked someone to take me home, they agreed at first but then when it was time to go, they asked me if I had a bus card and told me I should get on the bus because they didn’t feel like taking me. At that moment, I picked up my dignity and pride, walked away from the car, went to the bathroom and cried. I cried because that day I realized if you have just enough to barely survive, people won’t really help you as long as they know you’re still living.

That day I became more motivated than I had ever been in my life, I made a vow to myself to become successful so that in the future I could help others and also take care of myself.

Lastly, even though I have personal motives, there are people in my life who encourage me to be the best person I can be and achieve more than titles. Even though I have many example of what success looks like, there is mainly 1 person in my life who inspire me to do better. This person is a little girl at my church named Destiny. Destiny is only 5 years old yet she is extremely intelligent and articulate. One day she came to me during church, sat in my lap, kissed me on my cheek, and laid her head to rest on my shoulder. I thought nothing of it but she sat back up and said “Briana, you’re my big sister.” Even though I didn’t show any emotion at the time, later on that day I thought about that moment. I thought about what Destiny saw in me to make her want to adopt me as a big sister, I thought about what the big sister is suppose to provide for a younger sister. I later concluded that an older sister is suppose to be a role model for the younger sister and is suppose to be someone who leaves an impression of success in the mind, typically a trail blazer. I took that opportunity to check my reality and reflect on the way I was living all so I could show Destiny that success is possible when you have ambition.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my almost 17 years of life, it’s that ambition is the key to any piece of success achieved on this planet. There’s a reason that people do the things that they do, whether it’s good or bad, people have a cause for everything that they do. Motive is what makes the world function in the way that it does. In history class one day my teacher said “ The victors write the history.” From that day forward, I unconsciously made the decision to be the victor in my life so that I could write my own history and never let anyone else write it for me. From that day forward I realized motivation to win is crucial to everyday living.