Artwork by June Kim
‘Big results require big ambitions’ is a very famous quote by Heraclitus. In today’s society, people tend to use a metonymy of big results as success. Success is what defines a person’s ability and accomplishments, giving them a ranking in society. In fact, success is the word everyone in the world aims and envies for, in order to gain wealth, respect and fame. However, to reach the ‘success’ level, everyone must have ambitions in them. Everyone’s ambitions might be towards different goals in life; some might want academic succession or sports succession. Some might say ambitions are the secret ingredient to success, but a factor many people don’t comprehend easily is that ambitions are also a parasite that corrupts our mental health.
From a young age, you would be praised by your gift in either academics, sports or arts, which provokes ambitions in you in order to get more appreciated and loved. However, as reality hits on, the amount of competition in achieving that goal comes to light. Rather than deteriorating our ambitions, it stucks fire to it, making you want to over-exceed work into becoming number 1. From this action, we tend to choose unhealthy methods to allow our ambitions to be satisfied.
For highschool, the word ‘success’ is associated with ‘university’. Some of us would choose to work all day, all night in order to get not only our homework and studies from school done, but also our extracurricular activities too. The majority of freshmen start to choose courses or clubs that will benefit their resume, rather than joining clubs through pure interest. Through this action, many teenagers find living agonising and stressful which sucks the joy out of life. All we see in highschool are our future selves in college or university. We grind all our mental and physical health, brain cells and ability in order to achieve the ‘success’ everyone calls upon.
However, no one notices the isolation, the feeling of loneliness in oneself while reaching for that success. After running a long mile of studying, when you take a rest, you notice how the world ran without you. Some of your friends might be on a different chapter of gossip and interest, some of your friends might replace you with someone else in their friend group as they know how busy you are…From then, you start to regret everything…You will regret the amount of hard work you put in for the benefit of yourself, regret all the clubs you joined who would have drained all your energy and time, regret that your ambitions were too strong… Even though your ambitions might allow you to be successful and happy in the future, your current self might not be at that stage.
Personally as I lived on, I regretted all my hard work from years before. I regret not going out enough with my friends during middle school as I was overdosed with the responsibility of being a head student. I regret now not being able to make time for friends due to all my responsibilities in any clubs in high school… When I realised how much I isolated myself from my friends and family, that’s when all my stress from my studies turned into dejection. I noticed that my ambitions were corrupting my mental health while trying and after trying. Everytime I would cry in my bed about how my ambitions led me to a state of loneliness, she would always say ‘let yourself go, it’s okay to have fun in life’. Even though that phrase might sound very easy to do, it isn’t. But, by doing this allows me to become the person I was in the past.
Through this blog, I want to express a specific phrase: ‘it is okay to let yourself go’. Balancing out both your ambitions and the things you love is very important. Of course, ‘playing’ might make some people feel guilty about themselves… But letting yourself go, will allow yourself to breathe for a bit, release your stress and allow my ambitions to fuel once more later on. Ambitions are like fuel, they can run out easily therefore need to be charged. If you try to run all your life, you will regret the moments you could have had in the past and you will also get tired very easily… Have fun in life, success isn’t full happiness it is only a part of it.
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