Martin Luther King's Ambition Research Paper

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Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once said, “A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions” (Burton). All people want to be successful and have recognition for their hard work and achievement, whether it is in their career, in school, or in sports. To accomplish this success, people must have drive and determination; they must be ambitious. Every person has some sort of personal desire, something they want to attain, or a goal they yearn to reach. Many people find this term hard to grasp, often confusing it with other words, and only look at the positive connotations of the term and forget the negative aspects that it brings about. Ambition can be analyzed through the word’s origin, behaviors of ambitious people, examples that support …show more content…

One of the greatest leaders of all time was Martin Luther King Jr. He worked to establish equal rights of African Americans through peaceful protests and movements and used ambition as a driving force to carry out his actions to reach his goal. Although he did not know what the outcome would be, King was persistent, never dismayed, and took defeat as motivation to continue. All of King’s hard work and determination soon paid off after the ending of legal segregation of African Americans and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Biography.com Eds.). By this, King pressed to do something that would give African Americans equality and would make renown history because he wanted to see a change in the world. Another example of an ambitious person is businessman Bill Gates. As a child growing up in the Great Depression, his parents encouraged competition, teaching him to take nothing for granted and work hard. Gates was a great student, but his introduction and fascination with computers led him to pursue what he was passionate about and dropped out of college. At the age of 21, Gates founded Microsoft, which gave way to his success as an entrepreneur. His company then attained the title of the world’s largest software business and continues to dominate. His ambition, intelligence, drive, and competitiveness led him to …show more content…

Ambition is sometimes thought of as the acceptable form of greed which is the “inordinate or insatiate longing, esp. for wealth; avaricious or covetous desire” (“greed, n.”). People often disapprove some of the manifestations of ambition, saying that it is often excessive, and makes one believe that he needs something he simply just wants. Greed is not for the greater good, but for selfish interest and reduces our focus to the pursuit of the object (Burton). Also, too much ambition can create a problem because it negatively affects the mind and makes one become obsessive. This is excessive ambition to the point where one’s focus is shifted to where they lose practicality and balance between their lives and their goal. Over-ambition leads people to make illogical decisions that cause them to fall into tunnel vision with the belief that their goal is of utmost importance. For instance, in The Tragedy of Macbeth, ambition is the key motif of the downfall of Macbeth. After Macbeth becomes king, the power overtakes him and he becomes more worried about his own desires than the good of his people. Macbeth chose to ultimately make the wrong moral choice and waved off his negative ambitious intentions, saying, “I have no spur / To prick the side of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on the other” (1.7.27-30). He

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