There is a peculiar emptiness that seems to accompany the achievement of a goal.
One spends years pursuing something academically, professionally, socially, economically, even spiritually. You leave no stone unturned. You sacrifice, endure, strategise, pray, work, fail, rise again, and eventually arrive at the destination you once imagined would complete you.
And then, almost immediately, you become restless.
You have arrived, but you are already thinking about somewhere further.
You have achieved, but achievement itself has become insufficient.
You have what you once prayed for, yet you are already praying for something else.
Why is this so?
When, as human beings, will we ever say: I wanted one. I have achieved one. Therefore, I am happy. I do not need two.
Is there such a moment?
Or has time, desire and consciousness made contentment almost impossible for us?
Perhaps this is the great irony of human existence: we spend our lives pursuing things on the assumption that they will make us happy, only to discover, upon obtaining them, that we are chasing something else; something we may never achieve.
The destination becomes another starting point.
The finish line moves.
Oliver wants more.
And perhaps all of us are Oliver.
Consider the person who desperately wants a child. They may risk everything—money, health, dignity, perhaps even their lives—to have one. And when the child finally comes, perhaps even twins, joy arrives.
Congratulations!
But almost immediately, another set of questions begins.
How will I take care of these children?
How will I educate them?
How will I protect them?
How will I make them socially acceptable?
How will I give them the best life possible?
The achievement does not end anxiety. It merely gives anxiety a new object.
The child you risked everything to have becomes the reason you must now risk even more.
And so the cycle continues.
If you risk getting money through foul means, perhaps you eventually become rich. Maybe you become respected. Maybe society begins to call you successful.
But how long before millions become ordinary?
How long before you begin thinking about billions?
And after billions, what?
Trillions?
At what point does money cease to be a means and become an appetite?
You sacrificed a cup to get what you have. Perhaps you must now sacrifice three cups to get what you want next.
Then five. Then ten.
And eventually, you may discover that the thing you thought you were sacrificing for has become the thing you are sacrificing yourself to.
What, then, is the difference between ambition and enslavement?
If you risk it all getting married, well done.
You have become the role model, the standard, the couple others point to and admire.
But what will you pay to remain happy in that marriage?
How much will you compromise?
How much will you endure?
How much of yourself can you surrender before the marriage you were trying to preserve begins to consume the person who entered it?
And when will you finally say, I have enough happiness here; I do not need another version of happiness elsewhere?
If you risk becoming academically accomplished, bravo!
You are now an elite in society, perhaps a person of considerable knowledge.
But how much knowledge is enough?
Will you ever know it all?
And if you cannot know it all, what exactly are you pursuing?
Is there a point at which knowledge itself becomes another form of dissatisfaction—the more you know, the more acutely you become aware of how little you know?
Perhaps Socrates was right to locate wisdom in the recognition of one’s ignorance.
Then there is politics.
You risk it all to become a politician. Eventually, you become the gentleman of the land, the woman of influence, the person people call Boss.
Your party is in power.
Now what?
How much can you solve?
How much power is enough?
And when your party is in opposition, how much are you willing to sacrifice to regain power?
And if power is finally restored to you, how much will you steal, compromise or destroy to remain in it?
At what point does service become possession?
At what point does ambition cease to be about changing society and become simply about possessing the machinery that controls it?
Even religion does not seem immune from this human appetite for more.
If you risk becoming a pastor or prophet, at what point do you become content?
Is it when you cast out demons?
When your congregation reaches a thousand?
Ten thousand?
When you acquire properties?
When you travel to Israel?
When a bottle of water is sold to a desperate congregant for GH¢1,000 because it has supposedly acquired spiritual significance?
How many demons must you cast out before you feel accomplished?
How much money must you squeeze from your congregation before you can finally say, I have enough?
And after healing performing a miracle. What next?
Another miracle.
Another prophecy.
More anointing?
I could write a million more scenarios.
The underlying question remains the same:
After becoming who or what you wanted to become, are you happy enough to stop wanting? to stop growing? to stop learning? to stop improving?
We are constantly told that happiness is somewhere ahead of us.
When I get the job.
When I get married.
When I have children.
When I become rich.
When I become powerful.
When I become famous.
When I become knowledgeable.
When I become spiritually accomplished.
When I finally make it.
But what if “making it” does not exist?
What if every arrival contains the seed of another departure?
What if human beings are condemned to perpetually desire?
Oliver gets the Mercedes-Benz.
For years, that car was the object of his dreams. He imagined himself inside it and believed that something inside him would finally settle.
He eventually gets the car.
For a while, he is happy.
Then he sees another Mercedes.
Then a Bentley.
Then a Rolls-Royce.
Oliver wants more.
And this is where I become concerned.
If Oliver was willing to drink blood to get the Mercedes, what will Oliver be willing to do to get the Rolls-Royce?
If Oliver was willing to sacrifice his sanity for one thing, what will he sacrifice for the next?
If he already gave up a piece of himself for what he has, what part of himself will he give up for what he does not yet have?
This is the part we rarely discuss when we speak about ambition.
We celebrate the achievement.
We rarely calculate the sacrifice.
We celebrate the man who became rich. We rarely ask what he became in the process.
We celebrate the politician who acquired power. We rarely ask what he had to compromise to keep it.
We celebrate the scholar who knows much. We rarely ask what life he neglected while acquiring the knowledge.
We celebrate the marriage. We rarely ask what each person had to surrender to preserve it.
We celebrate the pastor with the enormous congregation. We rarely ask whether the congregation grew because the pastor found fulfilment or because the pastor could never find enough.
Perhaps the real question is not What do you want?
Perhaps it is:
What are you willing to become in order to get what you want?
And an even more frightening question:
What will you be willing to become when what you have is no longer enough?
Because whatever you achieve today may become ordinary tomorrow.
This is the strange psychology of desire.
The first million feels like a fortune. The second becomes a target.
The first degree feels like an accomplishment. The next becomes necessary.
The first house feels like a dream. The next becomes an investment.
The first position feels like success. The next becomes the expectation.
The first child feels like a miracle. Then we worry about the second.
The first achievement gives us pleasure. Then pleasure becomes the new normal.
And once pleasure becomes normal, we need another achievement to produce it.
So perhaps the question is not whether we should desire more.
Perhaps we should ask whether more is capable of satisfying the thing within us that keeps asking for more.
What if it isn’t?
What if the problem is not that we have too little, but that we have convinced ourselves that enough is always one achievement away?
There is nothing inherently wrong with ambition.
Human civilisation itself is, in many ways, the product of dissatisfaction. We looked at darkness and wanted light. We looked at distance and wanted transportation. We looked at ignorance and wanted knowledge.
To desire improvement is human.
But there is a distinction between wanting to improve your life and being unable to appreciate the life you have.
There is a distinction between ambition and restlessness.
Between growth and greed.
Between aspiration and obsession.
Between wanting more and believing that more will finally make you whole.
Perhaps contentment does not mean refusing to climb. Perhaps it means being able to climb without despising the ground beneath you.
Perhaps it means pursuing another degree while appreciating the one you already have.
Building another business without believing your present business makes you a failure.
Seeking greater wealth without treating your current wealth as evidence of inadequacy.
Improving your marriage without concluding that your marriage is worthless because it is imperfect.
Growing spiritually without turning spirituality into a competition.
Wanting more without becoming convinced that what you currently have is nothing.
Maybe happiness was never meant to be the reward at the end of the race.
Maybe happiness is something we must learn to experience while running.
Because if happiness is permanently postponed until arrival, and every arrival produces another destination, then we have condemned ourselves to perpetual dissatisfaction.
We will spend our entire lives arriving at places we once dreamed about and immediately looking for somewhere else to go.
And perhaps that is what makes the question so haunting:
When will we ever be enough for ourselves?
Dear Oliver, before you drink the blood for the Mercedes, ask yourself what you will sacrifice for the next car.
Before you sell your peace for money, ask what you will sell when the money you have is no longer enough.
Before you surrender your life to power, ask what you will surrender to keep it.
Before you sacrifice your health for success, ask whether the person who finally becomes successful will still be healthy enough to enjoy it.
Because whatever you achieve, there is a very good chance that you will want more.
And whatever you sacrifice to achieve it, you may be asked to sacrifice again.
You cannot sacrifice one night’s sleep to get a phone and expect to acquire a house with the same sacrifice.
You cannot give one piece of your soul and assume the next ambition will not ask for another.
The tragedy is not that Oliver wants more.
The tragedy is that Oliver may never stop long enough to ask whether what he already has is enough.
Perhaps the wisest person is not the one who has stopped wanting.
Perhaps it is the one who has learned the difference between I want more and I need more.
Perhaps it is the one who can look at the thing they once prayed for and say:
I am grateful.
Not because there is nothing more to desire.
But because, for this moment, there is nothing more I need to sacrifice myself for.
A word to the wise.
Actually, these may not even be words to the wise.
They may simply be words to all of us who are still climbing.
By Ishmael Oduro-Acheampong
