[JoshCole]

Wanting to make a contribution to something larger then themselves. Wanting to accomplish something meaningful. Wanting to test themselves. There are a lot of different reasons completely unrelated to happiness that someone might have for being ambitious.

On the whole, being ambitious and being happy are likely going to be in opposition to each other before the ambition is accomplished. A lot of things worthy of being described as ambitious are extremely hard by definition. There are likely to be many failures on the way. Perhaps years worth of failure. Perhaps someone's ambition will leave them crying themselves to sleep at night because they may never accomplish the goal and they hate that. Or perhaps their entire body is a mass of bruises or every muscle is sore because of how hard they are pushing their body.

[nether]

Yes, ambition usually requires sacrifice. I think the odds of really making it are vanishingly small though. It could be like daytrading, where 1% actually succeed and 99% lose a lot of money and sleep. Most people would find those odds insane, yet articles like this promote chasing that far-off, remote chance of a payoff. Accepting an average life is for the sane and reasonable, just as investing in index funds means accepting average returns.

[xxSparkleSxx]

But if they derive happiness from contributing to something larger than themselves, they are still working for their own happiness. No?