Category Archives: Ambition

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Forward Story for Two

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The concept of a Forward Story is very personal. Each of us needs one to define and fulfill our greatest ambitions. We each take personal responsibility for our actions and for living in a purposeful way. Part of becoming an adult is learning to stand on our own and to be responsible for how we live.

However, what happens when we determine to spend our lives with another person? The biblical characterization of marriage is that two people become “one flesh.” When we unite together into a unity, how does that affect our Forward Stories?

Image: www.freeimages.co.uk

My wife and I just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. One of our secrets is that we are both strong individuals capable of making it on our own. As the late M. Scott Peck said in his book The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, those who say they “cannot live without” another are really acting like parasites. A parasite needs a host and cannot live on its own. A healthier relationship is where both individuals can say, “I can live on my own, but I prefer to share my life with you.”

We live, then, with both our own personal Forward Stories and with a combined Forward Story as a couple and as a family. My wife and I recently realized that when we were first married we did a lot of work on our combined Forward Story. In fact, our lives so closely followed our combined Forward Story for the first five years that it seemed easy to us. Our story did not go beyond about five years from the date of our marriage, though. We have now realized that even though we are about to exit our forties, we need to craft a new combined Forward Story.

How does a Forward Story for Two differ from a personal Forward Story? The combined story must leave space for each of us to pursue our own paths. For example, if my personal story calls for me to work in my career through age 65, a combined Forward Story that calls for us to both retire at 60 and move to the Rockies would not be compatible. So, the combined story has to incorporate the ambitions of each individual.

Beyond that, the combined Forward Story is very similar to the individual stories. The process of developing this combined story is itself a very healthy process because it forces us to discuss all the areas of our lives that need to be taken care of. It also forces us to think about our mortality and the length of time we may have left. Even though the combined Forward Story will not turn out exactly as we write it, it will form a common vision that we will both work toward.

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Upward Mobility

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Those of us born in the United States may take for granted the context into which we were born. While far from a perfect system, the personal freedoms guaranteed in the US Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights) provide for a system in which the individual is empowered to mark a course and pursue his or her dreams. Not only in the USA, but in other countries as well, there is a reality of upward mobility.

The US Constitution

What is Upward Mobility?

Upward mobility is the ability to change and improve one’s social status. Historically much of the world’s population seemed fated to remain in the social circle into which they were born. If you were a prince or a pauper, so you would remain throughout your life. In many nations today, this is still the case. In societies like the USA, western democracies, and other countries with favorable laws and economic systems, a person can move from pauper to prince (so to speak) through education, hard work, creativity, entrepreneurship, the generosity of others, or pure luck (i.e. lottery).

The Coin has a Flip Side

In such a society, however, there is also the reality of downward mobility. For a variety of reasons a person can move from prince to pauper. Perhaps the CEO’s daughter gets addicted to drugs and squanders her advantage. The millionaire’s son was never required to develop the same traits that made Mom and Dad so successful and through laziness or incompetence wasted the money and the company.

Upward Mobility & Forward Story

The recent and current events in the middle east have caused me to think about what life must be like for individuals in those societies. The people of Tunisia and Egypt have demanded governmental change from monarchies/dictatorships to something (yet to be determined) closer to a democracy. As of this writing Libyans are rising up and paying the price to make a change from their longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He is using military force to try to cling to power. Why would Libyans be willing to die in order to change their government? One reason is that in their current system they have few personal freedoms and very little opportunity to change their lots in life. There is very little social mobility either up or down.

Flag-map of Kingdom of Libya

You will notice that there are some people in Libya that do not want regime change. They are willing to kill their fellow countrymen in order to prevent a change. Why? They are the ones currently enjoying the largess of the government. They are at the top. For those at the top and in power, social mobility is not a desired outcome. There is really nowhere for them to go but down.

How does all this relate to Forward Story? Individuals who are rising up in Libya and elsewhere are doing so because their Forward Stories under the current regimes and social systems are very negative. As they see other countries with laws favorable to individuals and as they yearn for their own pursuit of happiness, they develop Forward Stories that are possible only with regime change.

What Does This Mean for You?

If you are in a country where there is very little opportunity for upward social mobility, your choices are difficult. I wish I had some smooth path to recommend for you. Stay true to your vision of the future. I wish you courage and safety. If you live in a country where there is social mobility, count your blessings and take advantage of your opportunities. Realize that just as you can move up, you can also move down. Chart your course through the careful development of your Forward Story, and work your plan to create the kind of life you desire. Do not allow excuses to hold you back from achieving your ambition. A lot of brave and wise people gave a lot so you could have this opportunity.

Don’t let them down. Don’t let yourself down.

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Cliff Clavin & Meaning

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My wife sometimes lovingly (I think) refers to me as Cliff Clavin. The area in which I sometimes even remind myself of Cliffy is when I offer some shard of trivia I picked up somewhere in my reading or surfing. “It’s a little-known fact…”

"It's a little-known fact..."

If you have an insatiable and eclectic curiosity about the world, you are living in the greatest time ever to satisfy it. Never before in the world’s history has so much information been available to us. There is really no excuse for not learning anything you want to know.

As an example, if you are technically challenged and do not know what a hyperlink is, I can provide a hyperlink here to help you understand what it is. How cool is that? A hyperlink on hyperlink. In this fashion we can access vast amounts of information. Now that smart phones are becoming common tools, all of this information is literally at our fingertips. Cliff Claven would have been even more insufferable if he had possessed a smart phone.

Recently the thought hit me that while I can access anything I want to know, this information doesn’t necessarily produce meaning. Meaning deals with the end, purpose, or significance of something. Just because I can know in a few seconds about The Dardanelles or the Cilician Gates does not mean I can produce meaning in my life through that knowledge. At my fingertips is incredible information, but what we all really want is meaning.

Meaning has to factor into our Forward Stories. We want to write a future that is consistent with our understanding of why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing. If you have not yet developed an ambition that is in harmony with what it means to live, then be sure to make that a priority. Your ambition needs to be closely tied to what you think the meaning of life is. Perhaps a big part of your story for the immediate future (say, the next three months) is to focus not on information, but rather on meaning. When you emerge with a good grasp on meaning, then you will be ready to write a truly compelling Forward Story.

“If memory serves, the umbilical chord is 90% potassium.” -CC