Drowning Ambition

Have you ever had the dream where you jump into the ocean and start to free-fall underwater? In your mind, you know that you can swim but it does not matter. It feels as if you are moving in slow motion as you sink. Thrashing your arms does nothing to help you reach the surface; in fact, it makes you sink even faster. You know that you are drowning. You can see the surface of the water glistening, the sun is shining above, but you continue to sink into the dark abyss. Resilience is not your ally, the more you fight the deeper you fall. This is what it feels like when you seek ambition, but it does not align with your life. This is the part where our parents would say “timing is everything.”

In our minds, we see things as we want them to happen. In reality, it's harder. Being able to come to the decision to pursue a goal, dream or purpose takes tenacity. You hear stories where someone waited forty years to do the one thing that changed their life. They would say “This was my dream when I was younger, but I did not think it was possible.” We do not want to be that person and we definitely do not want to wait until our golden years to pursue a passion. Where is the excitement in that? I want to have the guts to do it now; even if it does not come with money, fame, or glory. If what you are dreaming of is monumental to you, why wait? Start working towards the things that you want even if they scare you. No one wakes up and becomes CEO without first putting in the work. Allow yourself to fail, then start over; fail again… and then learn and apply the things you learned to your ambitions.

What should scare you is that tomorrow is not promised. Here is a life lesson. Your fear of regret should be greater than your fear of starting. You can control how you start and you can proceed at your own pace. Oscar Wilde said “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” No one on this earth comes without a purpose. Give yourself permission to exist, find your purpose… find the courage to pursue your ambitions without apprehension of what may or may not happen.

” Let it not be as I wish, but as I dream. When we wish, we bound ourselves by our reality. We limit ourselves to what we know. But as I dream; that’s where the magic is. That is where our imagination is unleashed, where we allow ourselves to see with that far-seeing

eye. Where we accept the possibilities of who and what we can be. It is the dream that I would say we should tap into.”

- Anthony Taylor