On Ambitions

Sometime ago, at a church event, one part of the schedule was writing notes to people and putting them in bottles with names on them, so that at the end of the event you would get to take the bottle home and see what people thought of you; especially people who you'd gotten to know during the course of the event. One of the messages I received said things about how nice I was--the kind of things you write about people you don't really know that well--but then the end of the message surprised me.

"You come across to me as a very determined and ambitious person. Of course, this is just my own opinion, so don't get upset... Just don't let your ambitions consume you."

Ambitious? Really?

In my head I told myself, No way, this guy has never met some of my friends. Now that's ambition. Among other things that I could say about myself, or remember other people saying about me; overambitious, no, ambitious was just not one of them. What in the world could have inspired this anonymous writer to get that impression from me?

It took me a whole lot of thinking before I began to make sense of it.

I suppose without me realizing it, I had developed into someone inherently different from the person people expect. In primary school I achieved fluctuating grades ranging from fours to sixes on a one-to-ten scale--even now when I see people from my old school they're always tentative when asking about how I'm doing at school. I guess they're slightly worried that I've failed a few times and had to repeat the entire grade curriculum (I can assure you as of now I'm not at much of a risk of failing), so they always try not to bring it up.

Eventually, after we talk, they tell me I'm very different from the person they remember.

That's because the person they remember is the girl in the back row who still hasn't finished copying down that sentence from the board; you know, the one who still doesn't get how mathematical roots work? Uh huh, the one who multiplies by adding them. Yeap. That one.

The person they can see is the person who really outdid what she expected of herself in the first place. Who has her mother to thank for the change in mind that came about as a result of threats (which, by the way, is perfectly acceptable way to get your kid to do stuff), and a whole lot of other people to thank for helping her get so far.

When I look back at how much I've changed from the mute idiot in the back row to the person who takes chances, I begin to think; Yeah, maybe I can be a little ambitious.

Just that when you see a dream come true, and you witness a difference, you begin to believe that it's not complete folly to believe in absurd hopes, and to reach farther than you can grasp. When you look at how far you've gone and how much you've changed, you begin to have more faith in humanity, and you place hope in its dim but existing glimmer of kindness and morality.

You begin to ignore the darker side of the coin (even if it's not the best idea) and you risk looking like an entirely different kind of idiot by wishing for the unrealistic. You begin to find people call you naive simply for having faith in the possibility of a change. You begin to notice that the world you build around you is full of unrealistic hopes that you're more than happy to harbor for the rest of your life. You begin to speak out in defense of what you know to be true; and you're secure in the knowledge of being right without the need to rationalize it to bits.

You begin to think it's normal to actually have some conviction in what you're saying. You begin to melt outside of the norm and determine that you'll lead instead of follow. You begin to close your ears to the incessant snide criticism and your eyes to the 'truth' shoved in front of you, and you lead with hope and the belief that things will work out anyway.

So I guess maybe I have a slight tendency to be ambitious. I guess this is the point where you begin to realize that even though it's expected of you to be normal, you know you're more than capable of doing more.

Call me ambitious; but I think it's just faith when I say I have hope that in the future global warming will cease, that in the future Indonesia will truly get back on its feet and establish itself as a significant power in Asia. I think it's hope when I say 'we'll get through this'. Ambition is taking your chances because you know you can't fall far enough to break. :)