[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 1: Dreams]

[Carla Schroder]

On Monday 02 April 2007 23:19, Clytie Siddall wrote:

> Basic Human Rights
>
> 1. The right to feel good about yourself
>
> 2. The right to act in ways that promote your dignity and self-
> respect as long as others' rights are not violated in the process
>
> 3. The right to be treated with respect
>
> 4. The right to say "No!" and not feel guilty
>
> 5. The right to experience and to express your feelings
>
> 6. The right to slow down and think
>
> 7. The right to change your mind
>
> 8. The right to ask for what you want
>
> 9. The right to do less than you are humanly capable of doing
>
> 10. The right to ask for information
>
> 11. The right to make mistakes
> ___

This is an awesome list, thank you!

>
> BTW, thanks for sharing about ambition. I've never been the least
> ambitious, and felt guilty because of it. It's been another thing
> other people have expected of me: vicarious success, in at least some
> cases. But it's not me.
>
> Now I feel better about it, reading that others feel the same. I
> think ambition is perhaps a legacy of the male social structure. It's
> competitive, linear, alpha dog. I grew up in that sort of system and
> learnt to succeed in it.
>
> It never felt right.

Now here is a useful thing to discuss. There have been several comments in 
this thread that paint a rather negative picture of dreams and ambitions. 
Here is the dictionary.com definition of ambition:

am·bi·tion      [am-bish-uhn]  –noun 
1.  an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, 
honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too 
much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.  
  2.  the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his 
ambition.  
  3.  desire for work or activity; energy: I awoke feeling tired and utterly 
lacking in ambition.  
  –verb (used with object) 
4.  to seek after earnestly; aspire to. 

—Related forms
am·bi·tion·less, adjective 
am·bi·tion·less·ly, adverb 

—Synonyms 1. aspiration, yearning, longing. 2. goal, aim. 3. drive, force.

Only the first one has any connotations of fiendish competition and clawing to 
the top. The example for #2 could just as easily be "Painting the bathroom 
today was her ambition." The example for #3 could be the opposite of the one 
given, like "Clytie leaped out of bed full of ambitious energy to pain the 
bathroom." (I have been procrastinating painting my own bathroom, which is 
currently an uninspiring shade of corpse-gray.)

Ambition is a good thing. It's the drive and energy that moves us forward to 
achieve the things we really really want to achieve. It's a beneficial 
feedback loop- when I am doing things that I enjoy and that are fulfilling, I 
get energized and want to do more. 

When people say "I have no dreams or ambitions," or "My dreams and ambitions 
are modest," and that is realio trulio true, good! That is a beneficial bit 
of self-knowledge, which is the point of this exercise. If it isn't true, 
then I hope we can help each other figure that out. 

In general, women are not raised to aspire to very much, and to bury our real 
wants and needs under thick deadening layers of stupid stuff, so when I 
hear "oh, I don't want much" I think it's worth a closer examination. It's 
not required to share it with the list, but if you're thinking along these 
lines, you might take another look just to be sure.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carla Schroder
Linux geek and random computer tamer
check out my Linux Cookbook! 
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxckbk/
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~