Ambition Vs. Passion

Conditioned by a world that strives to "win," it's not easy to see how this sense of "I must become something or someone" is the underlying cause of suffering. For many reasons, it's rare for us humans to recognize that what we are, at any given moment, is enough...and so ambition becomes the con-man for the ego...the dog chasing it's tail. If you can step back (or out) of the clouds of the one illusion, you may get a glimpse that even when you succeed at whatever you're striving after, there is also this sense of "not enough" behind it. This is discontentment or, if you like, suffering. Passion on the other hand expects nothing in return...it sees the whole process as the reward, as well as the understanding that the skill which one acquires has very little to do with it anyway. That's the gift. You simply return the favor by illuminating it whichever direction you walk.