Personal ambition

Someone asked a question about whether getting rid of personal ambition is natural.

Monkeypox is natural, and titanium screws used to set broken bones are not, so being natural is not a great guide to whether something is good.

Ambition, according to the OED, is 'A strong desire to do or achieve something.'

Personal ambition is an ambition that is personalised to me.

Personal ambition presumes I'm a separate individual with a separate identity. We have to live and operate with that appearance, but it's just an appearance.

There is no person for personal ambition to refer to. It's an illusion.

If anything is desirable, it must be collective.

Ambition is really about wanting outcomes. Living a life based on wanting outcomes for oneself, i.e. personal ambition, fails. Pages 60 to 62 explain why.

What does one do instead?

Live by principles.

This produces desirable outcomes, but I need concern myself only with the actions, not the results.