Ambition

A few days ago I read something that defined ambition in terms that were not negative. It started me thinking about whether ambition was a good thing or a bad thing. I had always had a bad feeling about ambition. People who were ambitious were like Macbeth, Stalin, Voldemort, or Hitler. They were the ruthless people who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, and woe to anyone who stood in their way.

An article in Time summed up ambition as “that need to grab an ever bigger piece of the resource pie before someone else gets it. Nature is a zero-sum game, after all. Every buffalo you kill for your family is one less for somebody else's; every acre of land you occupy elbows out somebody else.” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126746-1,00.html)

Yet, does it have to be that way? Others define ambition as “energy and determination.” Another definition has ambition as “an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction,” and depending on what you wanted to achieve, and what you were willing to do to achieve it, ambition “may suggest equally a praiseworthy or an inordinate desire.” (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ambition)

Looking in the scriptures I find the word “ambition” used only once. “That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.” (D&C 121:37)

When is ambition “vain ambition” and when is it merely a strong desire to accomplish something good? I think I need to be more open-minded to ambition.