Ambitious or Greedy

Have you ever wondered about the difference between being ambitious and being greedy. At a glance, both seems to be similar. Few people might say greedy means being ‘over’ ambitious.  Let’s try to find out the truth behind these words.

Our everyday actions in professional, personal and spiritual life are results of our ambition or greed. But how can we differentiate between ambitious actions and greedy actions??

Let’s start by the dictionary meanings of both the words.

Both words expresses the “desire to achieve something”. The former has a negative essence while the latter has a positive essence.

Ambitious Behaviour

Any action or desire that portraits well being of self and others could be clubbed to ambitious behaviour. Examine the statement: “Our companies focus must be to provide our customers the best quality service”. This is being ambitious.

Ambition mostly results in well-being, trust and co-operation. This is the behaviour of successful and effective people. Ambition results in a slow but prolonged success.

Greedy Behaviour

Any action or desire that portraits only well being even if it means defeat of others could be clubbed to greedy behaviour. Examine the statement: “We should strategise to destroy our rivals and hence we become successful”. This is being greedy.

Greed mostly results in immediate success, but deprived trust and co-operation. It also brings rivalry and unethical competition. Greed results in fast but short success.

Human Nature

We are usually not aware of our actions and it’s results. Poverty, War, Global warming, Corporate Rivalry, Jealousy, are all results of greed. A time would come when everyone becomes ambitious and work for the common good. Now-a-days, collaboration is the key of success. We have more and more social websites coming up, many communities which focus on some common goal, etc etc.

These are all rays of hope that shows people have started keeping aside their greed and started working against a common goal.