Lipsa ambitiei, te poate impiedica sa-ti atingi obiectivele si te poate incetini in procesul de concretizare a propriilor valori, astfel rezultand

o persoana obidienta, lipsita de curajul infruntarii lumii cu pieptul deschis.

Cu totii ne nastem ambitiosi, avem in ADN-ul nostru inscrise regulile pentru supravietuire si mai mult decat atat.

Am intalnit in scurta mea experienta de viata, oameni ambitiosi. Foarte ambitiosi. Unii se foloseaau de aceasta emotie puternica. In alte cazuri, cele mai multe , ii folosea ambitia pe ei.

Ambitia a fost pentru mine multa vreme un fel de. cuvant negativ. Pentru ca in jurul meu eticheta de om ambitios, era de multe ori utilizata pentru a descrie o trasatura de caracter negativa, iar eu imi doream a fi un om bun, pozitivastfel ca mi-am lasat aripile taiate.

Dar probabil, am avut nevoie ca aripile sa-mi fie taiate. Experientele ce mi le-a oferit viata le simt extrem de valoroase, caci numai asa am inteles rostul lor. Am inteles ca trebuia sa invat ce este ambitia si cum o pot folosi pentru a aduce valoare, in viata mea dar si a celor din jurul meu.

A fost o perioada din existenta mea, cand oscilam intre un capat si altul al balantei. Referindu-ma aici la ambitie, oscilam intre o o acuta lipsa de ambitie sau o prea pregnanta prezenta a acesteia. Nu-mi gaseam inca echilibrul.

Echilibru. Un cuvant atat de minunat. Caci, da doar echilibrul ne poate aduce armonia in viata. In orice domeniu al vietii noastre.

In timp am invatat cat de important este echilibrul intre a fi si a nu fi ambitios. Calea nu era nici una nici alta. Calea, era sa inteleg si sa simt cand trebuie sa trag cu toata puterea mea pentru a obtine un lucru, sau cand era momentul sa renunt.

Cum afli asta? Increde-te in puterea ta interioara, in acea minunata emotie numita intuitie. In acel feeling care iti spune : poate e timpul sa renunti..sau.. trebuie sa mergi mai departe. _ -Despre intuitie mai gasesti un articol si aici.-

Ambitia poate fi un instrument extrem de util. Dar depinde foarte mult cum il folosesti si masura in care il folosesti. Si un cutit, il poti folosi pentru a-ti prepara hrana mai usor, sau il poti folosi pentru ati face rau.

Ambitia, daca e tinuta in frau iti poate oferi experiente minunate din care mai mereu poti iesi triumfator, caci atunci esti precaut, atent, cugetat.

Dar daca nu folosesti frana, s-ar putea sa te inneci in propriul..ocean de dorinte,visuri si neimpliniri. trisezi, minti, faci rau altora, sacrifici lucruri cu adevarat valoroase. devii nesabuit si las!

Si mai este un aspect deosebit de important: oamenii cu care te inconjori prin experientele, ce sub o forma sau alta, tu le chemi in viata ta iti pot fi cei mai buni prieteni, sau dimpotriva cei mai aprigi dusmani. Nu ti-am zis nimic nou, nu-i asa? Numai ca in ceea ce priveste ambitia si motivarea/demotivarea s-ar putea nici sa nu fii constient de etichetarea asta.

Am in minte un citat de-a lui Mark Twain : Stai departe de oamenii care iti micsoreaza ambitia. Oamenii mici intotdeauna fac asta. Cei cu adevarat mari te fac sa te simti ca si tu poti deveni mare. O suma de afirmatii ce e deosebit de profunda. E ceva asemanator cu : daca locuiesti printre schiopi, de la o vreme vei schiopata si tu.

Concluzionand, ambitia este deosebit de importanta. Dar mai important ca aceasta este masura care o folosesti. Daca pierzi echilibrul este foarte posibil sa te pierzi si pe tine.

Dar daca, stii sa te folosesti de ambitie, ea te poate aduce pe cele mai inalte culmi ale implinirii personale,profesionale si chiar spirituale!

Tu ce crezi despre ambitie?

Consider ca ambitia este o trasatura esentiala din caracterul si personalitatea unui individ care alaturi de alte calitati precum inteligenta,cinstea si perseverenta il ajuta in viata sa-si realizeze planurile,visurile si idealurile. In primul rand, ambitia presupune o incordare a tuturor energiilor de care este capabil un om pe care le mobilizeaza intr-o anumita maniera constructiva astfel incat sa se bucure de un rezultat pozitiv, de implinirea unui scop.De exemplu, desi nu sunt foarte inteligenta (acum sa nu va legati de faptul ca sunt blonda), ma caracterizeaza vointa si capacitatea de a munci ,calitati care suplinesc o inzestrare nativ, de aceea am reusit in tot ce mi-am propus.

In al doilea rand ambitia este atunci cand vrei ceva si esti sigur de ceea ce vrei, si nu te lasi pana nu obtii ce ti-ai propus,sa fii ambitios pana in panzele albe.Ambitia este o pasiune atat de puternica a omului, incat oricat de sus am ajunge niciodata nu putem fi multumiti. Ambitia este dorinta arzatoare de a realiza ceva: dorinta de glorie, de onoruri, de parvenire. Insa cine nu doreste sa fie mai mult, mai bun decat este?!Toti ne dorim, si acest instinct exista in cei mai multi dintre noi, doar ca nu fiecare individ isi da seama ceea ce vrea,ceea ce merita sau ceea ce ar putea sa obtina cu putin efort.Pentru cei care isi dau seama, inseamna ca exista ambitie, exista scop, dar a fi ambitios este de cele mai multe ori cea mai buna solutie.Un om lipsit de aceasta calitate este un om lenes, superficial, care intotdeauna va fi la fel ca ceilalti ,care nu va iesi in evidenta cu nimic (bun). Totusi daca ambitia este indreptata spre scopuri negative, cea care neaga adevarata scara sintagma "calca pe cadavre ca sa-ti atingi scopul!" In concluzie ambitia poate fi o virtute atunci cand ne impinge sa triumfam , ea este catalizatorul succesului! Insa trebuie dezvoltata si exersata!

As if you needed another reason to aim high: Ambition makes you happier, says new research. People who set themselves ambitious goals tend to be more satisfied than those with lower expectations, says a study published online in the Journal of Consumer Research. (It will appear in the December print edition.) University of California-Riverside professor Cecile K. Cho conducted two experiments, one involving stock-picking and another involving puzzles, to compare people who set ambitious goals to those who set more conservative goals. She then measured the level of satisfaction with the achieved goals, and found those who set high goals for themselves were happier in the long run. "The moral of the story is dont sell yourself short," Cho said. "Aim high." Heidi G. Halvorson Ph.D., a social psychologist and the author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (and who was not involved in the study) says the results are consistent with research on personal and professional goal-setting. People set goals with two factors in mind: expectancy and value, she says. "Expectancy" refers to how likely you believe you are to succeed, and "value" refers to how good it will be for you if you do reach the goal. "Safe bets, generally speaking, are less valuable ones," she says. "So once you've achieved the relatively easy goal, it's only natural to think about what it's cost you in terms of valueand that's going to reduce your satisfaction."

In Cho's first experiment, 134 participants were asked to set a target rate of return that they would be satisfied with and asked to pick from the range of six to 20 percent. Low goal setters were defined as those who set the rate at 14 percent or lower. High goal setters were those who set the rate at more than 14 percent. Participants were then asked to allocate a $5,400 budget by picking three of 20 fictitious stocks. After 10 minutes, they received the return of their stock portfolio so it matched their goal. Participants were led to believe their stock allocation had been entered into a database to get actual returns. They were then asked how satisfied they were with the returns. The puzzles experiment produced similar results. What's the ideal goal to set? People who only think about the value of their goal and not the odds of actually being successful "aren't going to be any happier in the long run," advises Halvorson. "It's about stretching yourself and aiming high, while still hanging on to a bit of realism. That's going to give you the most satisfaction, the most bang for your goal-setting buck.

This month, many of the nation's best and brightest high school seniors will receive thick envelopes in the mail announcing their admission to the college of their dreams. According to a 2011 survey, about 60 percent of them will go to their first-choice schools. For many of them, going away to college will be like crossing the Rubicon. They will leave their families -- their homes -- and probably not return for many years, if at all. That was journalist Rod Dreher's path. Dreher grew up in the small southern community of Starhill, Louisiana, 35 miles northwest of Baton Rouge. His family goes back five generations there. His father was a part-time farmer and sanitarian; his mother drove a school bus. His younger sister Ruthie loved hunting and fishing, even as a little girl.

Ambition drives people forward; relationships and community, by imposing limits, hold people back.
But Dreher was different. As a bookish teenager, he was desperate to flee what he considered his intolerant and small-minded town, a place where he was bullied and misunderstood by his own father and sister. He felt more at home in the company of

his two eccentric and worldly aunts -- great-great aunts, actually -- who lived nearby. One was a self-taught palm reader. She looked into his hand one day when he was a boy and told him, "See this line? You'll travel far in life." Dreher hoped she was right. When he was 16, he decided to leave home for a Louisiana boarding school with the intention of never looking back. That decision created a divide between him and his sister Ruthie, who was firmly attached to Starhill. Leaving for boarding school was "the fork in the road for us, the moment in our lives in which we diverged," he writes in his new book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life. In the book, he describes leaving his Starhill home to pursue a career in journalism -a career that took him to cities like Baton Rouge, Washington DC, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, New York, and Philadelphia. He was chasing after a bigger and better career with each move. "I was caught up in a culture of ambition," Dreher told me me in an interview. While Dreher was a dreamer, Ruthie was satisfied with what she had. When Dreher was living in big cities, going to fancy restaurants, carousing with media types, writing film reviews for a living, and traveling to Europe, Ruthie was back home in Louisiana, living down the road from her parents, starting a family of her own, and devoting herself to her elementary school students as a teacher. Ruthie could not understand Dreher's lifestyle. Why would he want to leave home for a journalism career? Wasn't Starhill good enough? Did Rod think he was better than all of them?

Alli Polin/Flickr

These "invisible walls" stood between Ruthie and Dreher when, on Mardi Gras of 2010, Ruthie was unexpectedly diagnosed with terminal lung cancer -- devastating news that ripped through her community "like a cyclone" says Dreher, who was living in Philadelphia at the time. She was a healthy non-smoking 40-year-old, beloved by her students, her neighbors, her three daughters, and her husband. Now, she had

about three months to live. She actually lived for nineteen. On September 15, 2011, Ruthie passed away. Watching her struggle with terminal cancer for 19 months, and seeing her small-town community pour its love into supporting her, was a transformational experience for Dreher. "There are some things that we really cannot do by ourselves," Dreher said. "When Ruthie got sick, there were things that her family could not do -- they couldn't get the kids to school without help, they couldn't get meals on the table without help, they couldn't pay the bill without help. It really took a village to care for my sick sister. The idea that we are self-reliant is a core American myth." When news spread of Ruthie's cancer, some friends planned an aid concert to raise money for her medical bills. Hundreds of people came together, raising $43,000 for their friend. "This is how it's supposed to be," someone told Dreher that night. "This is what folks are supposed to do for each other." *** The conflict between career ambition and relationships lies at the heart of many of our current cultural debates, including the ones sparked by high-powered women like Sheryl Sandberg and Anne Marie Slaughter. Ambition drives people forward; relationships and community, by imposing limits, hold people back. Which is more important? Just the other week, Slate ran a symposium that addressed this question, asking, "Does an Early Marriage Kill Your Potential To Achieve More in Life?" Ambition is deeply entrenched into the American personae, as Yale's William Casey King argues in Ambition, A History: From Vice to Virtue -- but what are its costs? In psychology, there is surprisingly little research on ambition, let alone the effect it has on human happiness. But a new study, forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology, sheds some light on the connection between ambition and the good life. Using longitudinal data from the nine-decade-long Terman life-cycle study, which has followed the lives and career outcomes of a group of gifted children since 1922, researchers Timothy A. Judge of Notre Dame and John D. Kammeyer-Mueller of the University of Florida analyzed the characteristics of the most ambitious among them. How did their lives turn out? The causes of ambition were clear, as were its career consequences. The researchers found that the children who were the most conscientious (organized, disciplined, and goal-seeking), extroverted, and from a strong socioeconomic background were also the most ambitious. The ambitious members of the sample went on to become more

educated and at more prestigious institutions than the less ambitious. They also made more money in the long run and secured more high-status jobs. But when it came to well-being, the findings were mixed. Judge and KammeyerMueller found that ambition is only weakly connected with well-being and negatively associated with longevity. "There really wasn't a big impact from ambition to how satisfied people were with their lives," Kammeyer-Mueller, a business school professor, told me. At the same time, ambitious people were not miserable either. "People who are ambitious are happy that they have accomplished more in their lives," he says.

People with ten or more friends at their religious services were about twice as satisfied with their lives than people who had no friends there.
When I asked about the connection between ambition and personal relationships, Kammeyer-Mueller said that while the more ambitious appeared to be happier, that their happiness could come at the expense of personal relationships. "Do these ambitious people have worse relationships? Are they ethical and nice to the people around them? What would they do to get ahead? These are the questions the future research needs to answer." Existing research by psychologist Tim Kasser can help address this issue. Kasser, the author of The High Price of Materialism, has shown that the pursuit of materialistic values like money, possessions, and social status-the fruits of career successes-leads to lower well-being and more distress in individuals. It is also damaging to relationships: "My colleagues and I have found," Kasser writes, "that when people believe materialistic values are important, they...have poorer interpersonal relationships [and] contribute less to the community." Such people are also more likely to objectify others, using them as means to achieve their own goals. So if the pursuit of career success comes at the expense of social bonds, then an individual's well-being could suffer. That's because community is strongly connected to well-being. In a 2004 study, social scientists John Helliwell and Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, examined the well-being of a large sample of people in Canada, the United States, and in 49 nations around the world. They found that social connections -- in the form of marriage, family, ties to friends and neighbors, civic engagement, workplace ties, and social trust -- "all appear independently and robustly related to happiness and life satisfaction, both directly and through their impact on health."

In Canada and the United States, having frequent contact with neighbors was associated with higher levels of well-being, as was the feeling of truly belonging in a group. "If everyone in a community becomes more connected, the average level of subjective well-being would increase," they wrote. This may explain why Latin Americans, who live in a part of the world fraught with political and economic problems, but strong on social ties, are the happiest people in the world, according to Gallup. It may also explain why Dreher's Louisiana came in as the happiest state in the country in a major study of 1.3 million Americans published in Science in 2009. This surprised many at the time, but makes sense given the social bonds in communities like Starhill. Meanwhile, wealthy states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California were among the least happy, even though their inhabitants have ambition in spades; year after year, they send the greatest number of students to the Ivy League. In another study, Putnam and a colleague found that people who attend religious services regularly are, thanks to the community element, more satisfied with their lives than those who do not. Their well-being was not linked to their religious beliefs or worshipping practices, but to the number of friends they had at church. People with ten or more friends at their religious services were about twice as satisfied with their lives than people who had no friends there.

lookseebynaomifenton/Flickr

These outcomes are interesting given that relationships and community pose some challenges to our assumptions about the good life. After all, relationships and

community impose constraints on freedom, binding people to something larger than themselves. The assumption in our culture is that limiting freedom is detrimental to well-being. That is true to a point. Barry Schwartz, a psychological researcher based at Swarthmore College, has done extensive research suggesting that too much freedom -- or a lack of constraints -- is detrimental to human happiness. "Relationships are meant to constrain," Schwartz told me, "but if you're always on the lookout for better, such constraints are experienced with bitterness and resentment." Dreher has come to see the virtue of constraints. Reflecting on what he went through when Ruthie was sick, he told me that the secret to the good life is "setting limits and being grateful for what you have. That was what Ruthie did, which is why I think she was so happy, even to the end." Meanwhile, many of his East Coast friends, who chased after money and good jobs, certainly achieved success, but felt otherwise empty and alone. As Dreher was writing his book, one told him, "Everything I've done has been for career advancement ... And we have done well. But we are alone in the world." He added: "Almost everybody we know is like that." *** For many years, Ruthie and her mother had a Christmas Eve tradition of visiting the Starhill cemetery and lighting candles on each of the hundreds of graves there. On that first Christmas Eve after Ruthie died, her mother could not bring herself to keep the tradition going. And yet, driving past the cemetery after sunset on that Christmas Eve, Dreher saw sparks of light illuminating the graveyard. Someone else had lit the candles on the graves -- but who? It turns out that a member of their community named Susan took it upon herself to pay that tribute to the departed, including Ruthie. In the final paragraph of the novel Middlemarch, George Eliot pays another kind of tribute to the dead. Eliot writes, "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." In other words, those many millions of people who live in the "unvisited tombs" of the world, though they may not be remembered or known by you and me, are the ones who kept the peace of the world when they were alive. For Dreher, Ruthie is one of those people. She was, he told me, "A completely unfussy, ordinary, neighborly

person, who you'd never notice in a crowd, but whose deep goodness and sense of order and compassion saved the day." Dreher also said of his sister, "What I saw over the course of her 19-month struggle with cancer was the power of a quiet life lived faithfully with love and service to others." While Ruthie, an ordinary person, did not live the kind of life our culture celebrates, she "penetrated deeply into the lives of the people she touched," Dreher told me. "She did not live life on the surface."
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What's remarkable, though, is that she was not extraordinary in this regard. Most of the people in the Starhill community were like her in their kindness and compassion, Dreher said. After Ruthie passed away, Rod decided, with his wife and young children, to put aside their East Coast lives and move back home to Louisiana. They have been there for a year and a half and love it. "Community means more than many of us realize," he says. "It certainly means more than your job."

http://news.nd.edu/news/29204-go-getters-fall-short-in-happiness-and-health-new-study-shows/

People who are considered ambitious attend the best colleges and universities, have prestigious careers and earn high salaries, but they dont necessarily lead more successful lives, according to new research by Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dames Mendoza College of Business. The lead author of On the Value of Aiming High: The Causes and Consequences of Ambition forthcoming from the Journal of Applied Psychology, Judge seeks to create a better understanding of ambition a commonly mentioned but poorly understood concept in social science research and its consequences. Is it a virtue, or is it a vice? Both, says Judge. If ambition has its positive effects, and in terms of career success it certainly seems that it does, our study also suggests that it carries with it some cost, Judge says. Despite their many accomplishments, ambitious people are only slightly happier than their less-ambitious counterparts, and they actually live somewhat shorter lives. Tracking 717 high-ability individuals over seven decades, Judge uses multiple criteria to measure ambition during periods of participants lives ranging from childhood to young adults just beginning their careers. Their education ranged from attending some of the worlds best universities Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley, Oxford and Notre Dame to more modest educations, including high school diplomas and community college degrees. Ambitious kids had higher educational attainment, attended highly esteemed universities, worked in more prestigious occupations and earned more, Judge says. So, it would seem that they are poised to have it all. However, we determined that ambition has a much weaker effect on life satisfaction and actually a slightly negative impact on longevity (how long people lived). So, yes, ambitious people do achieve more successful careers, but that doesnt seem to translate into leading happier o r healthier lives. Specializing in personality, leadership, moods, emotions and career and life success, Judge has published more than 130 articles in refereed journals, including more than

80 in top-tier journals. His study Do Nice Guys and Gals Really Finish Last? published last year, was widely cited in the media. Judges new ambition study tracks individuals born in the early part of the last century and continued to follow them throughout their lives, which is how the mortality measure was derived; however, it doesnt address the underlying reasons for the higher mortality of ambitious people. Perhaps the investments they make in their careers come at the expense of the things we know affect longevity: healthy behaviors, stable relationships and deep social networks. Most parents want their kids to be ambitious, attend the best schools and eventually have successful careers, and while it certainly isnt wrong to have those parental hopes and dreams, Judge cautions that we shouldnt delude ourselves into thinking they will make our kids happier. If your biggest wish for your children is that they lead happy and healthy lives, you might not want to overemphasize professional success. There are limits to what our ambitions bring us or our children.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/03/12/study-ambitious-people-unhappier-dont-live-as-long/

Bad news for people whose main goal in life is to get ahead: A new study found while go-getters are more likely to attend prestigious universities and hold high -paying jobs, they are only slightly happier than their less-ambitious counterpartsand actually live shorter lives. Ambitious kids had higher educational attainment, attended highly esteemed universities, worked in more prestigious occupations, and earned more; so, it would seem that they are poised to have it all, said lead researcher Timoth y Judge, a management professor at the University of Notre Dame. However, ambition has a much weaker effect on life satisfaction and actually a negative impact on longevity, he added. For the study, Notre Dame researchers followed 717 high-ability people over a period of decades from college until retirement age. Late researcher Logan

Terman identified these people after they tested high on measures of intelligence, and after Terman died, Judge continued his work. Because the participants were smarter than average, a significant number earned degrees from colleges and universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Oxford, and held careers as physicians, college professors and stonemasons. Conversely, some only earned a high school education, and others attended community colleges or less prestigious universities and held less-prestigious careers. Judge and his colleagues surveyed the participants at certain points in their lives to measure how satisfied they were in five domains of life occupation, family life, leisure activities, health and joy in living. The majority were surveyed in their mid50s, at the peak of their careers. The participants self-reports indicated that ambition was weakly related to happiness, and furthermore, the study found those who were identified as the most ambitious had a 15.5 percent higher mortality rate (45.5 percent mortality compared to 30 percent mortality) by the end of the study than the people who were the least ambitious. The effect was worse among ambitious people who did not achieve the success they were striving for. While attending a prestigious university or holding a high-paying job could offset the negative effects of ambition on longevity, ambitious people who did not realize their goals lived even shorter lives and were significantly less happy than others. Ambitious people who were successful in school and at work lived longer, Judge explained. Ambitious people who did not find success in these areas lived shorter lives. So, if one is to be ambitious, one had better insure that they translate it into success. Otherwise, they may experience the negative effects without any of the positive. Fortunately for those involved in the studyand others who consider themselves to be highly ambitiousambition was strongly correlated with educational and

occupational success. However, Judge added even when people did experience success, in some cases their own ambition could hinder their enjoyment. We think that ambitious people set very high standards for themselves and when they achieve success, they raise those standards further, Judge said. If this is true, ironically, the very thing that makes people successful is also what tends to negate the ability of those things to make them happy. If an ambitious person keeps raising his or her goals after every success, then its a bit like Sisyphus in Greek mythology: He rolls the boulder up the hill, only to have it roll down the hill so as to push it back up again. While Judge believes it is important to have goals and to strive for them, he said its important not to let the thirst for success take over ones life. I think the main takeaway is to appreciate what ambition gets youand what it doesnt, Judge said. It certainly does make people more successful in the obvious ways we define success. Thats importantHowever, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that success in this realm holds the key to living a happy and healthy life. Ambition is important, but so are other things stable family relationships, enduring friendships, and so on.