Perhaps there is no word in the English language that conveys to human thinking two such diametrically opposed meanings as does the word "ambition." It is usually taken to mean the desire and effort to rise to the top, to acquire riches or attain a position of prominence, oftentimes without regard to the unhappiness that this climbing may bring to others. Ambition, in the ordinary sense often implies competition, struggle, and strife. On the other hand, ambition may mean aspiration or righteous desire to acquire peace and spiritual happiness, to attain gracious qualities of thought.
After one becomes a thoughtful student of Christian Science, he finds that he must reconstruct his concepts of many things. He finds that he must replace his concept of ambition as desire for place, power, prestige, and that which would exalt self with the concept of humility which Jesus exemplified, the denial of human selfhood, the seeking of another's good even as one's own. The example of Jesus, who was mighty in meekness and great in unselfed ministry to others, is an ideal that Christian Science makes practical in daily living. In spite of worldly-minded opinion to the contrary, the teachings of Jesus are practicable and, put into practice, are profitable.
Study of the word "ambition" is interesting as well as helpful. A dictionary gives one meaning as "an eager or inordinate desire for preferment, honor, superiority, power." The same dictionary offers "aspiration" as a synonym which, it says, "implies as its object something felt to be above one, the striving after which is uplifting or ennobling." The truth, as Christian Science reveals it, is the most uplifting and ennobling ideal that can come into the lives of men. Seeking to understand and demonstrate the truth about God and man is highest ambition or aspiration for the Christian Scientist, and he finds this understanding and demonstration in service. He finds, too, that this service is expressed in being loving, joyous, unselfish, grateful, and courageous, living up to his highest understanding of good every moment. Furthermore, true or spiritual ambition is always marked by humility. In the same spirit in which our blessed Master washed his disciples' feet, on the occasion of his last supper with them, it seeks to serve God by serving mankind. It should be kept clearly in thought, however, that humility is not servility. It requires true greatness to be truly humble.
