This was a clip from the movie Jackie Brown, a 1997 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Melanie, the blonde girl, likes to get high. She doesn’t care about anything other than the TV show she is watching and the marijuana she is smoking.
Ordell, the black guy, tells Melanie that too much weed will rob her of her ambition.
To which Melanie replies that her ambition is to get high and watch TV.
So I decide to share my thoughts about Ambition.
I remember, when I was a little kid, let’s say 10 years old, I used to play with my friends, and all of us aspired to be something when we grew up. We were all excited about the future. We were full of ambitions.
Once I was at a high school where the teacher was asking the students what they wanted to be when they got out of school. Many wanted to have different professional careers, business owners, artists, athletes, etc. But a surprising few said that they just wanted to be union workers because a union represented job security. I was struck; they were young enough that they could aspire to be anything, why would someone want to be a union worker?
I think that in general we are influenced by our environment. If most of the adults around us are go-getters, we will probably be go-getters ourselves. If we are surrounded by people who smoke pot, drink beer, and watch TV all day long, most likely we will follow the same path.
My personal belief is that it’s better to to have ambitions than not to have ambitions. The sad reality is that we live in a competitive society, in which if you are not doing something to improve yourself, you will be left behind.
With that mindset, I have some tips to help you develop your ambition muscle so that you can have an edge in our competitive society.
- Reduce the amount of time you spend with people who lack ambition. If your friends, are constantly drinking, eating junk food, not exercising, doing drugs, watching TV or playing videogames, not doing anything to improve and educate themselves, maybe you should build some distance between you and those friends.
- Get closer to friends who have some higher goal other than their present day to day survival, people who have a more healthy life style, who are studying or doing something to improve themselves, who are looking forward to accomplishing something.
- If you have a hard time finding more ambitious friends, then costume media that would help you change your mindset. Read books, listen to podcasts, and watch YouTube video of people who inspire you and take steps to replicate, in whichever capacity, their goals and achievement.
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