I wrote a blog on “How much money is good enough for being happy in life”. On reading this blog and liking it, one of my ex colleagues asked me ,if I could write on “How to balance ambition and contentment”

In my view, ambition and contentment are like goals and happiness in life. We need to fulfill our goals , but when we get greedy, we lose the race of life. It is like ,a sportsperson realises, when to stop playing actively and retire from an active sport. However, if the sportsperson continues to play even though his body signals to stop, he or she may end up with some avoidable injuries.

Life is no different and neither our career nor business ambitions, are. Let me first illustrate this with a simple incident, I experienced in life. We had a chaat shop in our township, when I worked in a steel plant, at the start of my career. This shop still exists at the same place, even today.

It is very famous for their chaats and gulab jamuns. They open at 6 pm and close at 9 pm sharp. When I visited the shop after about 30 years and enquired why they have not expanded or changed ,the owner gave me a very insightful reply.

There is a huge demand for the chaats and gulab jamuns. Customers queue up even before the shop opens and almost have to be evicted, when they shut down. They have more demand ,than they can cater to. He said he earns enough ,to take care of his family and is very happy with the way his business runs ,and has maintained his quality and service. He does not want to get more greedy and destroy his reputation, built over decades. It was a great lesson on contentment in life.

Our careers have to be evolved this way. We need to ,set a goal for ourselves. We need to work zealously ,to reach that goal post. We could stretch ourselves ,if we think we have not yet realised our potential. But we have to learn not to stretch beyond our limits, as otherwise ,we would break down. It is like stretching the rubber band. By instinct, we know when to stop. If we break a few rubber bands, we learn by our experience and stop at the right time later.

So, whether business or an organisational career, we need to set goals and sub goals and strive our best to achieve them. The day we realise that the rubber band in us ,is fully stretched and may now break, we need to stop. It is like ,when a player retires, everyone asks – “why now?”, rather than “Why not now ?

Life gives us ,a lot of innate warnings. We need to learn, to listen to our own body, mind and soul. The individual is the best judge, as to when to stop. A coach cannot and should not guide a player, to retire from a game. It is the player, who has to realise, when to retire with pride rather than being dropped from the team, unceremoniously.

Ambition takes us where we want to go and contentment teaches us when to stop. Contentment and gratitude keeps us happy in life. So, we need to be ambitious enough to achieve our career goals and stop when we feel content. We also need to be grateful to all the people, who made us achieve our goals in life – parents, teachers, siblings, friends and colleagues.

Let contentment help us balance our ambition in life.

S Ramesh Shankar

27th June 2025