Ambition

I don’t want to be successful

I just want to live a happy life

Once you see it, you see it everywhere

Athletes, career-types, artists of every form

All breaking their back for power and popularity

In shows, in movies, in people around me

I pity it now

To think of the perfectly wonderful friends and homes

They’ve left behind in their quest for more 

I used to idolize and look up to these people

Who rid themselves of all “distractions” to achieve their goals

Now my hero is a man who sold everything he had

To sail the world with his brother

Along the way he picked up travellers

Bought some cameras and made a show

I look at this and ask,

“Was it about achievement?”

I don’t think so.

I think no thought was put into it

It was just the thing to do in the moment

I’d like to turn off my strategizing brain

Forever calculating the risks and rewards

Calculating the praise I might get for the effort

It’s a waste I tell you!

I can’t say it enough

If you have to make music or poetry or art

Then do it because you have to

Don’t measure the rewards

It doesn’t matter what others think 

Do these things for yourself

But not only for yourself

When I was in despair

And my music felt useless

My mother told me

“God is listening”