At least not in the most common use of the term. I don’t have that inner drive to make exorbitant amounts of money or climb the corporate ladder. To me, success means a job well done. I am a hard worker (and sometimes a bit of an over achiever), and so I feel successful now even without the large bank account and oodles of stress. I’m doing what I’m paid to do. I’m achieving my goals and making my deadlines. Is there room for improvement? You better believe it. I have lots of places I need to work on. It’s just that I feel successful in my job because I feel that I’m putting forth my best effort, and that’s a good feeling. Sure it would be nice to have more of a disposable income and a nicer job title with perks. Who doesn’t want that, really? But I don’t feel like a failure because I don’t have those things.
Lately, however, I’ve started to doubt my lack of ambition due to conversations around the office. One of them involved a young lady who did a co-op internship here at DAS. She will graduate this May with a Bachelors degree in Business and has received offers from 2 different firms—one position has a starting salary of $60,000 with a $5,000 signing bonus and the other position has a salary of $50,000 with a $1,000 signing bonus. Sounds awfully nice to me!
When I hear stories about new grads starting out with salaries like that, I start to wonder if there is something wrong with me. I have my Bachelor’s degree—not in business, but in journalism, and when I left college, there were no jobs to be had. I started out at a day care taking care of infants, moved on to be a bank teller, eventually became an assistant to a college advisor, then on to an administrative assistant for a quasi-state entity, and now here I am 10 years later… I make decent money, but it’s not $50,000 a year. I make enough to pay my bills and do most of the things I like to do. I’d like to travel to Europe and see more of the world, but right now my money is going towards other things like paying off debt and such. But over all, what I have is sufficient. I’m content, but should I be?
Why is it that I don’t dream about riding up the corporate ladder so much? Instead my dreams are of meeting a man with a British accent. Why don’t I have visions of a bigger bank account? Instead I imagine having a small little home and taking care of my family.
Hmmmm…I think it’s all about perspective. Money isn’t the bottom line for me, and rising to the top in my company doesn’t give me a tingly feeling at all. I guess I’m ambitious in other ways. I’d like to travel, I’d like to get married, I’d like to have a little place of my own, I’d like to finish my book, I’d like to take photography classes, I’d like to do a lot of things...
I guess, you could say that I have oodles of ambitions! HA!
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