Ambition is a trap
I am not here to discourage ambition. Ambition is personal. It is your right, your choice, and your pursuit. Yet, I feel compelled to share how I see the entire concept of ambition in the modern world.
When I was in school, competition was everywhere. We had something called a merit card for students scoring more than 45 out of 50 in a subject. The topper received a medal. One student always won that medal, and they were celebrated as the “winner,” the one who had “made it.” But in truth, that competition didn’t end with school. It followed us into adulthood. It became a lifelong rat race where recognition, success, and approval became the ultimate prizes.
The real question is; what is the benefit of this endless pursuit? A little extra money, perhaps a touch more social dignity, but at what cost? We lose our authenticity. We lose our humanity. The relentless chase for status forces us to play roles rather than live as ourselves. Instead of cultivating peace and meaningful human connection, ambition becomes a treadmill, always moving but never allowing us to rest.
In many ways, this system conditions us to become workhorses. It is the industrial-era mindset of productivity, modernized into corporate slavery. Employees bend over backward, working late hours not for passion, but to please superiors and earn recognition. The cycle is perpetual. And as Madara Uchiha once said, “Where there are victors, there will also be the vanquished.” This truth applies to capitalism itself. For every winner of the race, there are countless losers left behind, while those at the top quietly reap the rewards of our labor.
This competition is not natural; it is manufactured. It is a mechanism designed to keep us divided, distracted, and compliant. While workers fight among themselves, corporations and political elites profit. Instead of solidarity, society produces rivalry. It is a system of deliberate fragmentation.
Our only escape is what society has sold us as escapism and that’s the weekend. Saturday becomes a festival of consumption and intoxication. Sunday becomes a day of emptiness, overshadowed by the looming Monday. This cycle reduces life to a script, an algorithm of existence where we work, consume, and repeat. We are not living; we are functioning. We are not free; we are trapped in a wheel we did not design.
I once told my father: if capitalism can thrive in this world, why is communism considered impossible? Communism has undeniable flaws, yes. But at its ideological core, it is a system that seeks equality, an economy without class hierarchies, a society without division between rich and poor. In practice, it failed to deliver. But unlike capitalism, democracy, or socialism, communism never had the historical privilege of evolving and adapting across centuries. It was cut short, dismantled, and dismissed before its full potential could be tested.
Critics often argue that communism stifles progress, particularly technological innovation, due to the absence of competition. I partly agree, and it might have slowed the pace of development. But I also ask: what exactly have we gained from the so-called “progress” of capitalism? A new smartphone every year with minimal difference from the last. Minor upgrades paraded as breakthroughs. Is this what we truly define as progress?
In a truly communist framework, progress might have been slower, but basic necessities could have been universally guaranteed. Food, shelter, healthcare, dignity and these would take precedence over luxury gadgets. Fewer beggars, fewer malnourished children. Perhaps a less glamorous world, but a fairer one.
History offers us an example: East and West Germany. The division of Berlin became the symbol of capitalism versus communism. West Germany flourished under the capitalist model, showcasing material wealth, consumer freedom, and rapid economic growth. East Germany, constrained by its flawed communist system, struggled with poverty and stagnation. The allure of the capitalist West was so powerful that people risked their lives to cross the Berlin Wall.
This contrast became a global case study. It showed how capitalism lured people with the glitter of ambition and material success. The promise was not just higher wages, but the illusion of freedom, abundance, and recognition. People were convinced that prosperity lay on the other side of the wall, even if it meant risking everything. Yet beneath that promise was a carefully engineered psychology of desire, where competition and consumption became the chains disguised as liberty. Capitalism did not simply motivate; it seduced, it manipulated, and it turned ambition into a trap. The lesson is not about triumph but about how powerfully a system can bend human will when it sells dreams instead of reality.
Yet the question remains, at what cost? We now stand in an era where the gap between the rich and the poor has widened to unprecedented levels.
