Against ambition.
Why we mistake the breath of the divine for the canvassing of votes.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
I was listening to a podcast when the host said something that stopped me cold:
“My understanding, which could be wrong, but my understanding, my lay understanding of the way the Buddha and subsequent Buddhists talk about desire or ambition is not that you should have none. Like, the Buddha himself was extremely ambitious. He built this huge body of teachings, this large corpus of monks and nuns. He was, you know, cultivating relationships with kings and wealthy donors.”
The Buddha was ambitious. The sentence hung in the air like a wrong note. Something about it felt fundamentally mistaken—not as a matter of Buddhist doctrine but as a matter of what words mean, what they reveal about how we understand human motivation.
The word ambition comes from the Latin ambitio, which literally meant “a going around” or “a canvassing for votes.” In ancient Rome, ambition referred specifically to the act of seeking favor or office by making rounds to win support. Over time, the meaning broadened from political canvassing to any strong desire for success, achievement, or distinction. But the etymology reveals something essential: ambition has always been about moving outward into the world, seeking approval, attention, or success. It is inherently other-directed.
The podcast host’s claim rests on a premise that seems obvious to modern ears: if someone achieves something significant, if they build something lasting, if their influence spreads, then they must have been ambitious. We look at the Buddha’s corpus of teachings, his community of monastics, his relationships with powerful patrons, and we work backward. He must have wanted these outcomes. He must have been driven by the desire to achieve them. What else could explain such results?
This is the trap. We’ve collapsed all purposeful action into the category of ambition because we’ve lost the language—and the lived experience—of its opposite. We’ve lost inspiration.
The word inspired traces back to inspirare: to breathe into. The original sense, dating to the late fourteenth century, was almost exclusively divine or spiritual: to be inspired meant that something had been infused into you by a higher power, that grace, truth, or purpose had been communicated to you from beyond yourself.
The difference between ambition and inspiration isn’t a matter of degree or style. It’s a difference in the direction of causation. The ambitious person moves outward—canvassing, seeking recognition, pursuing results that will confirm their worth to others and to themselves.
Even what we call “internal ambition” or “ambition for mastery” is usually just a subtler version of the same outward-reaching impulse. The ambitious person keeps checking: Did I get it right? Did they notice? Am I getting ahead? The reference point remains external, even when the pursuit appears inward.
The inspired, by contrast, aren’t striving to win or to be seen. They work to reveal something—to bring truth, beauty, or meaning into form. Their energy moves through them, not toward an audience. They act not to achieve but to express what has been given to them. The action itself is the point. Teaching, building, creating—these aren’t means to recognition or status. They are the natural exhalation of the inner breath, the inevitable overflow of what has filled them.
Consider the question philosophically. Was the Buddha ambitious? He renounced his kingdom, his wealth, his family. He sat under a tree until he understood the nature of suffering. Then he taught, not because he sought followers or fame, but because he had seen something true and felt compelled to share it. The sangha, the teachings, the relationships with kings—these were consequences of his inspiration, not objectives of his ambition. An ambitious person doesn’t voluntarily leave behind power to sit in meditation for years. An ambitious person doesn’t teach a doctrine of non-attachment while actively seeking attachment to outcomes.
Was Socrates ambitious? He wandered Athens questioning people, refusing payment, insisting on uncomfortable truths until the city executed him. Ambition doesn’t willingly drink hemlock. Ambition adjusts, compromises, survives. Socrates couldn’t adjust because he wasn’t pursuing a goal—he was following an inner voice, a daimon, something animating him that he had to honor regardless of consequences.
Was Marcus Aurelius ambitious? He wrote his Meditations for himself, never intending publication, working out his philosophical commitments in private. An ambitious person doesn’t pour their greatest thoughts into a private notebook. An ambitious person writes for an audience, for posterity, for recognition. Marcus wrote because the writing was necessary, because philosophy was how he made sense of his life, because something in him demanded this reckoning with truth.
Was Jesus ambitious? He rejected earthly power, consorted with outcasts, spoke against the establishment, and accepted crucifixion rather than compromise. This is not the behavior of someone canvassing for votes. This is the behavior of someone moved by an inner imperative so strong that external consequences become irrelevant.
Consider Martin Luther King Jr.’s street sweeper. King didn’t say the street sweeper should be ambitious—should aspire to become a sanitation director, or seek recognition as Employee of the Month, or canvas for promotions. He said the street sweeper should sweep streets “even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.”
What moved Michelangelo? Not ambition for commissions or fame, but something infused into him that demanded expression through marble and paint. What moved Beethoven? Not the desire for applause, but an inner music that had to be made audible, even after he went deaf and could no longer hear the approval of audiences. What moved Shakespeare? Not the pursuit of literary status, but an inexhaustible wellspring of language and insight that poured through him onto the page.
King’s street sweeper is called to sweep with that same quality of inspiration. Not to become the best-known street sweeper, not to revolutionize the field of street sweeping, not to rise above the work into something more prestigious. Simply to sweep streets so well that “all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” The action itself becomes sacramental, the highest form of faithfulness to that inner call.
The pattern is clear. The figures we most admire, the ones whose influence echoes across centuries, weren’t playing the game of ambition at all. They were responding to something they had to express, follow, or honor regardless of whether it led to success or failure, recognition or obscurity, life or death. The results we now point to as evidence of their ambition were never their aim. They were byproducts of inspired action moving through the world.
This is what I find objectionable about the word ambition and its promiscuous application: it flattens the mystery of inspiration into the mechanics of goal-seeking. It makes everything transactional, instrumental, about results and recognition. It transforms the breath of the divine into the canvassing of votes. And in doing so, it blinds us to the possibility that some human beings are moved by something other than the desire to achieve, that some action flows from a deeper source.
When you’re in the presence of inspired action, you can feel the difference. The person isn’t performing. They’re not adjusting their words or manner based on your reaction. They’re not checking to see if you’re impressed. They’re simply present with what moves through them. There’s no going around. There’s no canvassing. There’s just this force moving through them, and they’re being faithful to it, even when faithfulness costs them everything.
The Buddha wasn’t ambitious. He was inspired. The difference is everything.
P.S. If you want to see inspiration in its purest, most heartbreaking form, watch this short animated film about a kiwi bird who dreams of flying. It’s lighthearted on the surface, but it captures something profound about being moved by an inner imperative that the world tells you is impossible.
Stay passionate!
An important distinction. Thanks for keeping us thinking.
Tom, I love your writing and it speaks to me at a very human level. It resonates… but throughout this article I wondered why all and every example is male. I understand you are pulling from historical references. However Women have been silenced throughout history and have so much wisdom build through matriarchal life long learning. I swear that your formulation of humility and service is how every single older women thinks about inspiration and ambition, just doing what they do and never looking for acknowledgement - because they have never received it/been conditioned that way, and therefore don’t dwelled upon it. I find more and more I am looking for writing that acknowledges the female contribution and silencing.