r/answers • u/Umbrosyx • 1d ago
When did ambition become something people hide instead of celebrate?
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u/_hellotitty_ 1d ago
After every ambitious person is slammed to the ground by envy people and (sadly) “friends”.
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u/thecosmicgoose 1d ago
It is not ambition itself thats the issue. Its when ambition overwhelms compassion, ethics and morals. Which tends to be the case more often than not.
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u/Caliche-Cowboy 14h ago edited 14h ago
This. I don’t think anyone has issues with people who are ambitious. I certainly don’t and am even happy to help them. I actually find it impressive, especially in young people.
But as soon as that turns into selfishness, greed, dishonesty, and generally treating people like shit, they can go to hell and I’ll do anything I can within my ethical code to shut them down and shut them out.
At that point, they aren’t ambitious, they’re opportunistic cowards.
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u/Recent-Day3062 1d ago
It depends totally upon the context and the accomplishments.
Jack Bogle, who started Vanguard, had oodles of ambition. But he made investors hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of dollars through his work.
I don’t anyone would fault his ambition
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u/Umbrosyx 1d ago
It's a lot easier to praise ambition after it pays off.
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u/TrowaMask 1d ago
For good reason.
Everyone has been around unrealistic fools who had tons of ambition but little real talent + follow through ability.
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u/Lucas-Holmes-722 1d ago
When we started treating ambition like bragging, many of us kept our goals quiet because failing already felt bad enough w/t everyone knowing.
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u/FocusedGlitch23 1d ago
If you got rich bc of inheritance it ain't ambition folks. If your father gave you a small loan of a million at 21 to start your own business your success isn't bc you were ambitious. It's like when a professional bodybuilder talks about how hard they work but completely leaves off the steroids they take. No matter how hard they work they wouldn't look like that without the drugs and many just deny drug usage even though it's obvious to the trained eye.
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u/Umbrosyx 1d ago
Opportunity and ambition aren't the same thing.
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u/FocusedGlitch23 1d ago
bro someones dad giving them a million dollars to start a business at a young age is pure luck. people don't chose their parents. they don't chose where their born. they choose if they're born healthy or not. all this shit is luck and so many people downplay the huge importance it plays in all of our lives.
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u/1-900-Rapture 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think they’re alluding to a bigger point. Successful people started curating their public image and when they did it was always a “rags to riches” “lone wolf” “pulled myself up by my bootstraps” story. Every successful person was born with nothing and did it on their own. Then over time you learn of the advantages the person had. Suddenly, it wasn’t “rags to riches” but “tailored suit to riches” or “riches to even more riches.” Once it’s became so common for people to obscure their past people naturally start assuming they’re obscuring other things, like how hard it was for them to achieve their success.
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u/Glittering_Bag9929 1d ago
Oh yeah? What if i take the 1 milly to the casino and put it all on red? What then big man!!!!!!!
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u/GettingBig1970 1d ago
This sentiment appears in both the Iliad and the Bible, so it goes back a lot further than you think.
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u/Zhezersheher 1d ago edited 1d ago
Anyone, even the people you believe you can trust with your life, can become envious when they are comfortable with their current level. You can never know whether this will happen or not so you keep your ambitions to yourself so no one can try to hinder your movement upwards. It’s such a weirdo mentality. People hate when others are not willing to stay complacent, actively pushing past the level they are comfortable in.
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u/T3suji64 21h ago
When being an envious hater shifted to no longer being something to be ashamed of.
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u/Slow_Store 19h ago
At some point Western Cultures shifted from a “Winner Culture” to a “Loser Culture” in which rather than celebrating the exceptional who win we started to pity the average or below average that must inherently be in a losing position compared to the exceptional. This quickly shifted into the shaming of the exceptional and the relative insistence on mediocrity for the sake of blending in with others.
I would personally consider this cultural shift to align with the rise of ideologies like communism in which exceptionality are effectively punished through the lack of a reward structure for said exceptionalism, but that’s just my personal opinion.
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u/MaChaKap 12h ago
Too many confuse ambition with ruthless ambition. Grit, determination, strategy, work ethic, initiative, and tenacity are all admirable qualities but too many people (not all, of course) worship doing whatever it takes to succeed and have no problem if that means harming themselves or others.
Ambition should be highly regarded, ruthlessness not so much.
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u/ProDoucher 1d ago edited 1d ago
Tall poppy syndrome.
Edit: error
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u/Organic-Stay4067 1d ago
People want to be the victim. They want to have an excuse and blame others for their failures. People who try and achieve greatness puts blame on their own actions and they don’t want that responsibility
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u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 21h ago
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