Ambition

The issues

Dreaming the Possible Dream

Oscar Wilde once described ambition as 'the last refuge of failure'. By contrast Judaism teaches that 'anyone who can sleep for seven days without dreaming is a bad person'. This Talmudic reference is interpreted by Rabbi Berkovitz as meaning that it is fundamentally wrong for someone to go through life without having ambition.

To contend with ambition in the workplace it is important to firstly define who you are. Recent research in the USA has shown that people tend to define themselves by what they do and what they have. If this were the case then losing one's job or possessions would result in a loss of identity, when in fact it is one's character that represents one's true self.

This explains why it is so difficult to part with money for a charity, because if we define ourselves by what we have, we are parting with a bit of ourselves when we give away money. There was a charity advert that appealed for donors to 'give until it hurts'. Judaism says 'give until it does not hurt', meaning that one will have developed an identity more concerned with deeds than possessions.

Merely accumulating wealth for its own sake is wrong. When one of the Reichman brothers, the men responsible for the development of Canary Wharf, was asked why he continues to strive to accumulate wealth in spite of having already made his fortune, his reply was that he was happy that the 10% of his income allocated to charity had grown larger. His ambition had stretched to working harder to help others more.

Another misapprehension regarding ambition is the accumulation of wealth for its own sake. Dr Twerski, the psychotherapist, saw a patient who told him that people thought him crazy because he loved pancakes. Dr Twerski told the patient that he also liked pancakes and the response was 'well, you should come to my house, I have an attic full of them!'. We see this person as ill, but the pursuit of money for its own sake is not too different yet seen as a normal ambition in society.

The Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss was once asked what good he had done with the power and fame that he had achieved. Dreyfuss replied that he had used it in order to become a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and make his feelings known to the public. He chose not to rest on his laurels, rather to make the most of his position by supporting a worthy cause.

However, ambition should not be pursued to the detriment of others. At a recent JABE seminar a law graduate spoke of his supervisor, a partner within the firm, who insisted that their department be the first to arrive and the last to leave every day, even if they did not have enough work to justify such hours. His motivation for this revolved around his own ambition, the objective being to portray his department in a good light at board meetings in order to secure a bigger bonus for himself. The same principle applies when the desire for power causes someone climbing the corporate ladder to tread on others.

A question arises on the verse in Genesis, 'Let us make man.' To whom does the 'us' refer? The common response is that it refers to G-d and man. G-d gives us the ability, the character and all the potential necessary to achieve our objectives, and it is up to us to realise this potential on the way to fulfilling our ultimate ambition.

Hillel sums it up by stating 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?' If we do not realize our potential no one else will.