Ambitious or Never Satisfied?

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ambition is the desire for personal achievement. It provides the motivation and determination necessary to achieve goals in life. Ambitious people seek to be the best at what they choose to do for attainment, power, or superiority.

My husband and I argue over this topic all the time.  He would still have the same furniture he had when I met him 17 years ago if I had never pushed the issue of getting new stuff.  He has a great job and is a great worker - making it through 2 lay offs even when a bunch of his friends didn't.  He has worked for the same company for over 20 years... but he never applies for higher positions.  He doesn't want the added responsiblities.  I am highly ambitious.  I am always striving to do more, have better, be better.  He thinks I am never satisfied with what I have.  So it got me to wondering... was I not? 

I look back at my life and think how happy I was at 12 when I graduated from the 6th grade and got a new yellow Sunflower bike with a banana seat and a white basket.  Man that was a beautiful bike!  I rode that all around the neighborhood for the entire summer!  But would I had been happy with that at 16 when I got my license?  I mean it was transportation, and it would get me from point A to point B.... Does that make me not happy with what I had, because now I wanted a car?  No!  I was ecstatic to get that bike!  But at 12 bikes are enough.  At 16... you want more... you DESIRE more.  Is that not being satisfied or is it ambition?

So then, it stands to reason that one is never fully satisfied.  I mean, if people were content with things in their lives, they would never try to better themselves, right? 

My question is, if you don't want to live your life being simply satisfied with whatever you have... that you want to have better things in your life... is that ambition or are you never happy?  At any rate... time marches on, and with it so do my desires.  Just having a bike wasn't enough for me.   I will always continue to outgrow things and want to move forward to always better myself and my surroundings.  Does that make me ambitious, or never satisfied?