I've often heard that the word ambitious is negative. But I've rather liked the word. It suits me, and it suits the life I've lived.
When I think of my childhood and where I've come from, video clips play in my mind like a movie of my life: going to the grocery store for my mom with paper food stamps to buy dinner, and if I saw someone I knew from school, I would wait an hour for that person to leave the store, so they didn't see me using them. The biggest fear I had at 10 was the dreaded experience of a classmate getting behind me in line and seeing that I was poor. It happened often. I would shake and sweat, and the blood would just drain from my face.
Being poor was just one of many things I carried shame about as a child. The actual position of being born poor was not what influenced my life the most – it was the messages associated with who I was or wasn't, or who I could or could not become because of what and who I was born into. Most people who are not born into such circumstances can never fathom how powerful those messages are. In many ways, they are a blueprint for a person's life. Attempts at looking for or trying to find a new set of blueprints are met with such harsh realities that we go back to the original plan on a real subconscious level. Ambitious living doesn't seem like it could be an option.
For me, it was a lonely experience attempting to live a different path. There were no mentors or guides that told me how to do it because they had not gone down this road themselves. There would be a repeat of moments just like in that grocery store my entire life. For instance, I walked several miles in the rain to buy a comforter for my dorm room bed because all I had was a towel to sleep under, and the next Monday morning, the cute girl asked if that was me walking in the rain the other day carrying all kinds of stuff.
"Why didn't you just have your mom drive you?" she said.
I lied, saying she was busy at the time. I was ashamed that my mom died 8 years before, that I ended up 1000 miles from any family, and that I had actually no one – not a single person – to help me.
There were a million reasons to quit and only a few to keep trying. Trying just became a habit in ambitious living. I went to class, went to my job at Arby's, and then went to my next job at the Holiday Inn. I literally got up every day and did it. Over time, I began questioning the messages I had received that I was not worthy or capable of having what others have. Happy, normal families were for other people, not for me. Nice homes and cute shoes were for other girls. I made a conscious decision to do and be all the things my heart desired. It created in me a fierce determination because there was no way this would happen without it.
My confidence to be all of who I am comes from resisting the urge to succumb to these negative expectations in my life. I am ambitious, determined, and alive but also vulnerable, afraid, and insecure at times. Most importantly, along the way, I have learned that I, too, am deserving of a good life. It fulfills my heart at such a deep level to create experiences and things that, in small ways, help carve that path for others.
So here is to the beautiful word ambition: may we all be brave enough to take a different path and dig deep within to stay the course.