Macbeth Pre-Reading

Ambition is the strong desire to do or achieve something and I believe that ambition can be both positive and negative. An example of how ambitions lead to negative results is found in the story of David Johnstone and John Hoare. David had an ambition to row across the Atlantic Ocean; it had only been done once before but for whatever reason he had to do it. His strong desire to row the ocean caused him to spend all of his money on a boat and find a partner. After a lot of hard work and generosity of the people, John and David were able to launch from America on their way to Great Britain. They rowed somewhat successfully for a while until a storm hit and the boat was lost in the unforgiving ocean. Sure this is an extreme case of a failure in ambition but nonetheless it proves my point. David had an ambition to row the ocean and this desire resulted in his death. Ambition for smaller things like fortune can also result negatively if it causes you to take risks or ignore other aspects of your life. Even if you succeed in your ambition to achieve something like wealth the outcome can be negative if you have lost friends and experiences along the way. On the other hand ambition can be positive when you work hard for your goal without losing sight of what’s really important. An example of positive ambition is in Terry Fox: he had a desire to run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Terry had a desire to raise cancer awareness and even though he eventually died he succeeded in his goal. I think ambition will only result in a positive outcome if there is reason for your desire, maybe if David were rowing the ocean to raise awareness for Cancer research he would have achieved his goal. Knowing his desire was bigger than himself maybe he would have rowed fast enough to beat the storm instead of taking his time. Perhaps wanting something for a reason makes it more possible for you to succeed.