TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Exercising Ambition
by
HL Carpenter

 

You’ve heard the news reports: Physical and mental exercise is vital for overall health. Now researchers have discovered it’s equally important to exercise your ambition.

“Studies show flabby ambition leads to small thinking, frustration and general dissatisfaction with life,” says G. Reatly Desirous, Chief of Achievement at Strive Mightily University. “Why would anyone settle for that?”

Ms. Desirous says you can practice building your ambition at home, as long as you have the right equipment. All you need is confidence, industriousness and an ability to deal with obstacles. Even better, she says, you’re never too old to begin, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female. Sweating is optional.

“Ambition is a state of mind,” says Ms. Desirous. “With proper resistance training, anyone can excel.”

Skeptics remain unconvinced that ambition is a good thing. They point to the problems caused by wild ambition and blind ambition, both of which have been known to produce extreme behavior and inflated egos, conditions that can be dangerous to human health. In addition, they say there are plenty of ambitious failures. Instead of driving ambition, these critics believe the practice should be subdued.

“Ambition is just a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy,” writes a cynic who insisted on using a pseudonym.

 

Originally published June 2008.