The Success Gambit

Ambition may very well be a snorting, voracious beast of a thing gobbling up resources and creating powerful (and hard to control) urges.  And we are in a culture addicted to it.  But here a few sentences about a poassible "flip side".  What about the understated virtue of a normal life – one lived NOT in pursuit of some grandiose idea, but something that seems far more mundane on the surface:  serving?

I believe our appetites would kill us, given the chance.  They are linear equations (more, more, always more) not unlike cancer (a tumor is uncontrolled growth).  Our appetites would have us dream a thing that could kill us to achieve (Mt. Everest – see Into Thin Air by John Krakauer or Deep Survival by Laurence Cruz).  Sometimes it is fitting to say “no” to our heart’s desire.  Even further – sometimes it is NOBLE (see the Bible – all of it).  

What could we call the other side of success (the one we don’t talk about in a culture that has “phallicized” it – the darker side of success)?  After all, it is a bit of a gambit:  maybe when you set out on a path to touch great things, you trade the mundane you didn’t know you needed for a shot of glory you only thought would fix it all.  You could call that a dangerous trade to be sure.  

So it is that many have ended up in bed with a prostitute or wrapped around a needle because of desires they couldn’t control.  The size of the thing you want is matched by the size of desires/holes/needs/thirsts it creates.  I think we should be cautious about what level of appetite we unleash.  We ought to be careful it is something that can be satisfied in the context of a healthy life.