Undergraduate / "My own ambition" - Common App Personal [5]

Ambition

Recently, I've been wrestling with the true meaning of ambition. This bit of inner-philosophical debate was spurred on by an interviewer, who asked me to identify a characteristic I possess. Immediately, I said ambition. To me, the word has a ring to it, and I've always felt it is one of my primary qualities. Merriam Webster provides a definition for the word as "an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power." This definition seems to describe a power hungry Napoleon stopping at nothing to conquer anything and everyone around him. The dictionary has helped me out several times, from writing papers to playing scrabble with my family, but on this occasion I disagree with the given definition, and it only seems fair I should develop my own interpretation of ambition.

An easy place to start in defining a word like ambition is to identify people in history who had the quality; people such as Julius Caesar, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. surely possessed considerable ambition. My favorite historical figure, Alexander the Great, displayed no shortage of ambition. In fact, I'd make the argument ambition is one of the defining traits that separates the somebodies of history from the nobodies, and motivates certain people to rise above the masses. However, ambition doesn't necessarily have to originate from a craving to create fame for one's own self as the dictionaries imply, but in my opinion, a fierce desire to create, change, or help to the best of one's abilities.

Ambition is easy to pinpoint in renowned figures in the world, but I believe it is also found in people who we see everyday that are constantly pushing themselves to be the best and never settling for anything less. It can be seen in a person who no matter what level of success they have achieved in a profession, they are always striving to give their best effort. Or even a mother who is constantly trying to provide and care for her family in whatever means she can. I saw this commitment in my middle school history teacher; every single day he brought energy to the classroom and taught as best as he could on subjects ranging from basic world geography in sixth grade to the beliefs of the Greek philosophers in eighth grade. I can still remember how enthusiastically he approached his teaching, and it was clear he not only loved what he was doing, but also had a desire to teach us to the best of his abilities. He was ambitious in educating us and even throughout high school, I have not yet learned more from one teacher.

My own ambition is best exemplified in my aim every year after my baseball season is over to work and train in order to improve and become the best baseball player I can be for the next season. I spend hours practicing hitting, pitching, and fielding in order to achieve success on the baseball field. However, my ambition isn't limited to sports. I am determined to make a change in the world with my life; though I do not know whether this change will be on a small, local scale like my sixth grade teacher or globally impactful like Winston Churchill. I am by no means on a quest for self-serving fame like Napoleon, but rather, my goal is to approach life energetically and to find a purpose that I can pursue to the best of my skills and abilities. For that reason, the characteristic I chose was ambition, although not the dictionary definition, but instead my own. Ambition: an enthusiastic determination to pursue a goal to the best of one's abilities.

Corrections are welcome too. Thanks guys.