No ambition

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I've been noticing that I have no ambition what-so-ever. It's not something that I really want to change, because I'm able to accept that. It's more on the lines of me feeling a bit looked down upon by everyone else, who basically demands every single human to have a lifelong goal. That ambitious life style doesn't appeal to me at all, and I hate being told that there's something wrong with me for not living that way.

Anyone else feel similar?

I can definitely relate, although I do actually long for it. I feel a bit pathetic for not having a drive to be/do more.

I can definitely relate, although I do actually long for it. I feel a bit pathetic for not having a drive to be/do more.

Yep, living in the moment. I have no functional life-planning skills at all.

i can relate to this a lot. i am, not wanting to sound like a braggart, very intelligent. the only thing standing in my way is my total lack of ambition.

People wondered why I aspired to lower-tier jobs -- the kind near the bottom of the business. I don't want that responsibility or stress, or competition, or politics with coworkers/bosses.

I want to stay home and pursue my hobbies. If they go somewhere, and I hope they do -- Awesome.
But I don't really have any real aspirations of the grand kind.

Mostly, I just want stability. For me, that /is/ aiming high.

I'm the same way. I clean offices. I have been working for this small business for so long that at this point I just go to the office to pick up supplies and get my paycheck. No one is breathing down my neck and if I want to go home and cat nap between jobs I can. My family thinks I only lack self confidence, which is true but the real issue is I know I can't handle the stress. I'm not ambitious either. I just want to curl up with my special interests. I like being insignificant.

It's the over way round for me. I often hear people say to me to lower my expectations and to lose sight of my goals and ideas of what to do in the future.

That sounds to me as if being seriously ambitious is silly, especially when those people try to talk me out of it while emphasising that they just don't want me to be unhappy when I fail to achieve something. They say to be happy with something more insignificant, because supposedly most people do become perfectly happy with typical everyday matters and lose their ambitions over time. As if being ambitions can't mean you can't be happy about simple things such as eating ice cream on a hot day or being happy you're just here at this moment.

I think if ambition makes anyone seriously unhappy, they got something terribly wrong about ambition, goals and about life. But that's just me and next to nobody else seems to follow my thought process there or else people wouldn't so often try to stop me from being ambitious to supposedly rescue my doomed happiness.

It would be nice to swap these people who react as if huge ambition is bad for ones who value it. Too bad trading people like that isn't possible, it could make us much happier perhaps.

Allow me to offer a big "me too" here.

I was one of the best at school. I frequently got high 90s or 100% on tests, and scored the highest UCAS points total in my year. I have a good degree from a good university. But I have no interest in getting the "good job" that supposedly goes with that. All the university careers fairs were about law and investment banking. I've quit a job that could have led to a career (software testing), suddenly and without notice, because I couldn't handle it. A "normal" person would probably have coped. I've had a couple of jobs since then that don't need my qualifications.

I have no long-term future plans. As far back as being a little kid I remember thinking "Am I ever going to get there?" and sometimes even "Do I want to?" I no longer have any particular interest in making my own life with my own family, my own house, my own car etc.

I'm interested in stability too. But unless it was about as stable as a nuclear bunker with several-feet-thick walls there would still be the worry of it disappearing.

I'm not happy where I am, but I'm more contented than I would be in the real world.

I used to have ambition. I found something I really liked and wanted to do (law enforcement...specifically criminal investigations), but several factors (some relating to AS) kept me from ever getting a fair chance to obtain my goal. I never got my foot in the door, and there is no direct hire from no experience to "detective."

After that, I never found anything that fired me up enough to make a goal in life. I've found that living to "goals" is a good way to get hurt because there is no guarantee that if you apply yourself and work hard that you will get what you strive for.

I suppose absent a "special interest" that has a vocational outlet, people with AS have a hard time having what passes for "ambition."

i never had any ambition. it is difficult for me to imagine what it feels like to have ambition.
i believe "ambition" means "to have a goal that you strive to achieve".

i just do what i please at any instant every day.
my life has fallen reasonably well into place even though i had no preplanned concept of how to fashion it.


if my life is a stream, then it is a merrily calm one. i need not think too much about contingencies.

i have short spurts of very ambition. but it leaves rather quickly
things i still wanna do: learn how to drive, finally say: it is finished! concerning my ragtime gal, and also i might wanna find a better place to live although i'll probably just stay where i am for years and years

I am the opposite of this. I am highly ambitious, but I don't have the means to see any of my ambitions through, hence I am unhappy. If, perhaps, I was a lot less ambitious, I would be more happy.

Same thing here. It has taken a long time for me to realise that I don´t have ambitions, rather than that I am lazy.

I don´t really understand the concept of being ambitious. If it means that you want to do what you like doing, then I am already ambitious: I have my intense interests, and I usually find that my job has to compete with them. A job is nice, but it consumes too much time.

I have learned to realise that my job enables me to pursue my interests, because I have to pay my bills for my daily needs and interests. My ´ambitions´ are never job-related, so I rarely see my wallet puff up because of my ambitions/intense interests.

If I had to be ambitious at work, then it would mean that I will have to ´grow´ and accept a job where it is my duty to manage people and to direct processes in which people are operating. But I don´t like telling people what to do, or changing their ways of working. I couldn´t stand bearing such responsibility! Bearing more responsibility would mean that the mistakes I make, have worse consequences, and it would mean that I will feel stressed all the time, and take my worries home, where I am supposed to pursue my interests.

So I´d rather be doing what I´m expected do to, and to safely return home at 5.

I have always had a lot of ambition but it has definitely waned. Many obstacles being thrown into my path as well as resulting depression have contributed to this I think. It scares me because there's a lot still that I want and need to be able to do for the sake of my survival. I'm afraid my drive and ambition has been snuffed out but I am reserving judgment and will wait and see when I enter school. I express my ambition through my artistic capabilities and talents but am concerned because of the changes in my sense of ambition, drive and will to live. I think/hope/believe it's still there and I have a lot of good to look forward to and that I will finally succeed and prevail.

i've been told all my life that I was bound to do great things, that I had so much potential, but yet I'm 34 and haven't really done much of anything and seem to be going in reverse since my mid-20's.

I do have ambition to do something, the problem is that I don't know what I want to do much less what I CAN do. I'd managed to ignore (or be unaware) that there were limitations in my abilities, up until when I got let go from my last job because I just didn't have the organizational skills to keep up. This was the first time it was said in as many words, but this has been an ongoing problem I've had in many previous jobs.

I've been out of work 9 months now, and I'm going freaking stir crazy. I want to do something with my life, but I just don't know what - or how. I guess I can relate in a way since it at times feels like I don't have any ambition since I don't know what it is i'm doing.