Aspiration and Ambition

Aspiration and ambition were (to me) interchangeable. However, Joshua Rothman’s article made me re-think that. Aspirations are about our hopes and goals. Maybe it’s about big things like aspiring to be great partners, friends, parents etc. or smaller ones like aspiring to learn a second language, be a published novelist etc. 

Ambition is more about getting what we want; often transactional. In a very clear-headed (sometimes cold-hearted) way, our ambition is about the end result. What did we obtain, earn, achieve etc. by doing what we did? By fawning over a leader, we hope to curry favor and get that promotion. Through bribery, extortion, punishment, or reward we can reach that next achievement or distinction. Ambition is a real desire, and it is taking the actions to gain something like honor or power or wealth or prestige. 

It seems that aspiration is positive and ambition is negative, but it’s not always so cut and dried. If we earn a promotion and the power it brings, we can parlay that into good work. And an aspiration to learn something new may not be for the right reasons. 

We must slow down and look at our motivations and recognize that it may be that the difference is that aspiration is our better angel and ambition is our self.