The cost of freedom is high; it always has been. Trailing behind it, the cost of ambition is the second-highest commodity in the world.
If you are a person with serious drive who is constantly working towards a goal, no matter how small, you will relate that you will be alone most of the time. It’s because people don’t get you. You accept your fate as a lone wolf, and you understand what the feeling of “Being alone in a crowded room” comes from. You have very few friends and cannot make any for safe-keeping because anything less becomes a liability. But if you meet someone who clicks with you, it barely takes 20 minutes to know that the friendship will be uplifting for both of you.
It can be extra challenging when looking for a genuine connection. You are not trying to impress anyone; trying to make a point or change someone’s opinion. You can only connect with people if you are being yourself and are not filtering yourself for being accepted or fit in.
You choose to invest in your dreams. You grind now in hopes that someday you might shine later. You work hard in silence because failure will slap you in public but success hugs you in private. You accept that you will never be able to convince anyone why you do what you do or the hard work you put.
Being a loner does not bother you anymore; your real friends know you and are happy with the arrangement. The constant grinding exhausts you from time to time, but you know that the fruits, whenever they might come, will be worth the effort you put in now.
You have no deficiency of motivation. Instead, you need people around you to tell you to take a break from your own life and not work. You constantly feel like an outsider and end up ostracising yourself for not fitting in. Most of the people you meet don’t match your wavelength, which is the core and fundamental problem for being alone most of the time.
Passion cannot only be shared. It is cultivated and nurtured through life.
My friends constantly made fun of me for being too nerdy, yet today, they reach out to me to help them solve their tech problems. I’m not going to lie; it hurt. Many a time, I contemplated if I was weird, but something kept me going. Even my father told me not to be weird. That was a punch in the gut.
This is what I have to say now about ambition :
- Be weird.
- Be driven.
- Be judged.
- Be misunderstood.
- Let them gossip.
- Their opinions do not matter.
- Learn to caution restrain.
- When ambition ends, happiness begins. (Not sure where I read this)
But at the same time: Be humble.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?”
– Gospel of Mark 8:36”
Make no mistake, I am not a believer and yet I have read the Bible, Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita. (Not that I remember 99% of it) You take what you can, the best of what you can, and don’t look back.