Ambition Definition

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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? …show more content…

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.

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