No ambition

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I am the Queen of No Ambition! My highly ambitious family despair of me and my unemployability.. I used to work an office job but I hated it so much, I am not well organised and have a poor attention span and am clumsy with my hands. I could do the job but my stress levels were so huge that I eventually collapsed...

My great ambition right now is to find work that I can go to and do and find it ok and doable, bearable. . I know some people dream of plush executive suites and flying business class and making subordinate employees wet their pants in fear, but I just want something pleasant which I can do which makes me happy. I dont even know if that exists. If I cant find something pleasant I just want something I can perform at ok and do.

I must admit that though I dont have career ambitions, I do have life ambitions. I would like to see more of the world, and do more singing, painting, some types of volunteer work perhaps. I just want others off my case.

Define ambition.

If you mean job wise, then I don't really have much ambition. I don't want to cause ripples in a company, nor do I care to get a big corporate job. The only 2 things I desire is happiness and security, and I just want a job that offers that. As long as I have a job that allows me to live comfortably and allows me to do the things I want to do, then I have no interest in wanting to go on beyond that.

Now, if you're talking about personal ambitions, I do have some of those. I have hopes of being a screenwriter/director, but whether or not I accomplish that depends on if I get over my fear of failure or not.

I don't have much career ambition. My ultimate career goal is to get a secure job in which I don't have to deal with people often and can do the same thing everyday and then just do that. I only want enough money to live comfortably and support my hobbies.

Why deal with the stress of being a "sombebody" when you can enjoy the peace and quiet of being a "nobody"?

You're 19. A lot of people your age don't have goals that they have in mind. I would know. I was the same when I was 19.

I can relate to the OP. Being ambitious just doesn't fit with me, never liked forcing my way on others either.

It' s funny I ended up here, on a autism forum, reading talks about having no ambition while I'm thinking that this ambitious world around me is made by autism people. I thought autisme people have a strong focus of what they want and then go for it no matter what, like the world around me. sort realy knwoing what is important, and then without feeling foryourself, the surrounding and for others getting/doing that what you think you want. I suppose i'm wrong in my idea of autism people, and maybe I have asperger or something.

Being ambitious is saying what you have now is not good enough. I've always liked what I had never thougt of what I am or wanne be and I almost died under this fear what other people put on me to "do" something, be something as if I am nothing now. In the time I did that I didn't see I only thougt. I ended up in drugs for feeling my body and my own feeling. And than I saw it, that it was me behaving strangely.

I think being ambitious involves looking around at the world and looking at the roles people play and then being able to visualise yourself in one of those roles. Then you would look to working towards getting yourself there.

I guess the root of my lack of ambition is that I look at all sorts of roles and I cant imagine myself in any of them. The only ones that appeal to me are sort of free-wheeling things, such as travelling artist and photographer, or being a wealthy homeowner with a nice garden. But all of these things require money... I need finance for my dreams and I dont have it!

When I look at conventional careers they are way too structured and way too fast paced for me to be able to handle. So none excite me.

Interesting that this comes back up. I was pretty lost at the time, and I've since come full circle (though I'm still out of work, going on 2.5 years now.) I guess it just takes time and the right circumstances, plus never giving up.

I'm in school now, having finally figured out that I wanted to do something in regards to food/agriculture, likely something with nutrition/dietetics. I've since conquered a major demon with the sleep problems I've had over my entire life, such that I can actually get to class in he morning (that caused me to have flunked out multiple times plus led to crappy grades in high school.) I've still got a long way to go (I'm almost a sophomore, credit wise, but I'm effectively in my first semester as a freshmen due to prerequisites I have to follow in sequence for chemistry classes.)

I guess in some ways, I've always had ambition, but have never known where I could channel it in any useful way until now.

I know, I had the same thought. I think I was 32 at the time when I wrote my post, and now I am 34. It was weird looking back at myself then.... I think I have changed a lot.

This. This exactly. How i feel. I like the small things in life. I cant handle trying to be a robot and submitting to society pressures to be part of the machine. I just want to find happiness and for me thats stability too and love and comfort

I have no ambition - never have. Am in my 50's, and remember as early as 6th grade thinking 'only 6 more years of this and I am done.' A neighborhood paperboy's ambition age 13 caused my dad to say to me "look at him - he has drive". My reply to dad: wonderful for him. College? Gesundheit. I went for 3 years only because mom wanted me to, accumulated 2 years worth of credits & hated it. Perhaps I too will end as EM Cioran did, Alzheimer's blunting what senses mine remain from the burden the self & a body that is life.

Do not confuse lack of ambition with laziness, least in my case - I have worked, always arrived on time, and worked many jobs including heavy physical labor when younger & was always complimented for my hustle, etc. Yet, have always seen a job as but a means to an end: food, shelter, clothing - not for a home (never wanted one), portfolio (ditto), acclaim/rewards (ditto), other. Married when young, divorced, had a child who is doing well now in her 30's.

I'm also a parasite now. I live with my mom, a long-term relationship having been ended (by my ex) due to her inability to deal with my AS. I inherited some money (6 figures) a decade or more ago, spent it frivolously on the only thing that ever appealed to me - classic cars. Now have but two nice collectible vehicles to $how for it. I will inherit the house when she dies - and more money. I've no clue what I'll do, probably sell the house as I don't want the responsibility of owning a home. Can't live in an apartment though - the rabble will mess with my cars, need a garage; life/decisions is/are so hard. Might sell them when I'm over them/someday, just not ready yet. And if I hadn't the cars/the responsibility them, 'two' less things to be responsible for.

Don't envy me or on the other pity me... I do neither because quite frankly, have no idea the why/wherefore that I am and don't care so much as just wish I might go to sleep some night and to borrow from Cioran imagine my "future will cancel out". When it comes, eternal nothingness, unconscious compared this life's wide awake same. Can't use the excuse everything was given to me because it wasn't - I supported myself from age 22 on & still do, earning just enough to get by. Also knew I would inherit $ so perhaps that plays a part my lack of ambition, but I don't think so because it was already there as a child. Do just enough to get by, nothing more; say that with neither pride nor embarrassment, just certainty.

I know this may all sound like a put on but it is not, I assure you. * sigh * An opportunist yes, lazy no. AS yes, mental defect otherwise no. Depressed? Of course... I was born on & live the Wrong Planet.

Last edited by IWishIWasCioran on 29 Oct 2011, 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm the exact opposite.

I am now, and have always been ambitious - it's really the only thing in life that I do well...

I'm the same. Nothing really interests me. I have small interests, but nothing to be able to stay focused and live my life around. I'm only obsessed with certain people, but that doesn't really get you very far. I just end up wanting to become involved in their lives then making a fool of myself, or sitting there really wishing I could be like them when I'm not. That's no good. I should really just get out there and try new experiences and realise what I do like, and be the best me I can be. Nothing else should matter.

But, I am too unconfident to do it. I want to be a bus-driver, but when it comes down to it, I don't really - it's just because the people who I'm currently obsessed with are bus-drivers. Then I'll have to get money to get a car (I haven't even found a job yet), then get 3 years experience of driving (and that'd make longer for me because it takes a long time for me to build courage up), and then I have to go through all tests with buses what I will probably fail because of memory loss (even if it's something I'm interested in), then at the end of it I'd probably lose interest by then and then find I'm not coping very well with handling a bus, even if I was still interested.....I know me, and I know this will happen.