The Ambition to Excel

3/9/2009

During the last year of his life, John Adams, our second President, was visited by a young Ralph Waldo Emerson, recently graduated from Harvard University. Emerson spent the day with Adams listening to him reminisce the birth of our nation.

The American Revolution was a time of risk and great uncertainty but our founding fathers persevered in their resolve to create a new nation. In addition to external threats and challenges, they overcame internal conflicts and rose above their personal agendas for the common good and for a common goal, a free America.

Years later, Emerson was asked about the day that he had spent with Adams. Emerson said that he was struck by Adam’s comment that what the country lacked, and needed most, was people with the “ambition to excel”.

The ambition to excel drives us to go beyond the possible and pursue the seemingly impossible. It helps us understand that the opposite of success isn’t failure, it is complacency.