Journey of ambition to meaning is the journey from growing up to waking up.

We are all on a journey from ambition to meaning. Within the worlds of ambition and meaning, there are journeys within journeys. Sitting at the core of these two worlds there are the identity phases we evolve through.   

Our identity, the single most powerful force in the human condition. This is because we will do all we can to remain consistent with our identity. Any inconsistency and we can feel intense emotional pain. For example, there have been many people who define themselves by their careers and then suddenly lose their jobs. For many, this can turn into a crisis. If I am my career and now that has been taken away from me, I will feel the pangs of pain. The very thing that defined me, that I would remain consistent with is now no longer there. I now have an inconsistency between how I see myself and what I am not doing. This can lead to an identity crisis – a discussion for another time.

The ambition driven world is a journey about growing up, an expansion of responsibility. Here are some questions that drive the ambition driven world:

• What do you think of my car?
• What do you think of my results? My progress? My career?
• What do you think of how I look? My hair? My body?
• What can I get? Get the girl, the boy, the experience, the skill, the wealth, the qualification, the business?

The focus emphasis here is on the external and how we are progressing in comparison to others. This ambition driven journey is also about growing up. Growing up in our attitudes, our experience, our skills, our results, and ultimately growing up in the expansion of responsibility. This ambition driven journey is great if you are loving it, loving the challenges of winning and losing, loving the progress and enjoying this building phase of our wealth, skills, psychology, and relationships.

The central theme is growing up.

Then enter the meaning driven world. At some point, we realise the ambition driven world just isn’t enough. We discover that there is something missing. We are missing depth. The external comparison game has an expiry date. The challenges that used to excite us stop exciting us. What once mattered, matters no more. We then start looking for answers. We begin asking different questions, our identity evolves. Here are some new questions which replace the old:

• What can I give?
• What is my legacy?
• How can I be of value to someone else?
• What am I? Who am I?
• What is consciousness? Who or what is looking through my eyes?
• What is life really about? What is life?
• What matters most to me now?

We evolve. We now play a different comparison game. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, we compare ourselves to ourselves. We compare how far we have come within our own journey. We now begin prioritising waking up over growing up. Once we have attained enough. Enough experience, enough money, enough stuff, we realise that we have been on a cycle of hedonic happiness. This means we buy a new thing which temporarily makes us feel ‘better.’ That feeling then wears off and we are back to where we were at the start. We then go buy something new and we get another hit of good feeling.

After a while, we notice the hit is not as significant. The new purchase makes a minimal impact on how we feel. Eventually, we begin ‘waking up’ to this and hence our questions change. When our questions change so does what takes our attention. Our priorities change.

Waking up is a journey toward spirit. The realisation that we are so much more than our bodies, results, and even our legacy.  CS Lewis once said. “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul, what you have is a body.” Beautifully said. The waking up journey is embarking on a permanent sense of curiosity about who is doing the looking, what is breathing our bodies. We become curious about the intelligence that opens a rose. We become aware that the same intelligence that opens the rose, is beating our hearts and breathing our lungs.

Growing up is key to becoming successful in the ambition driven world. Waking up is the mission of the meaning driven world. From a personal point of view, nothing matters more than us all waking up beyond our human definitions and limits. We are on a journey of waking up to who we really are. Ineffable, beatific, and beyond imagination.

Thank you for reading, always appreciated.

 For more about the Journey of ambition to meaning, listen to Episode 50 of Insights with Joe Pane, the podcast.