Ambition

Chip (one of my gerbils) loves to try to dig through the glass of their rodent aquarium. It's obviously a futile effort. You can't dig through glass.

But the thing is, the gerbils used to be in a plastic aquarium. One time, I guess I didn't latch the door properly, and Sandwich escaped. Chip, despite the clear exit, remained in the cage. Another time Sandwich chewed a hole through one of the tubes and escaped. Again, despite the gaping hole, Chip remained in place.

Which makes me wonder: Why is Chip so desperate to dig through the glass? If she could succeed, what next? Does she even really want to make the leap from the cage to the floor and risk facing the ferocious beasts that lurk freely in the house? History tells us that no, she doesn't want to take those risks.

I think sometimes we get so hung up on wanting something that we lose any kind of foresight. Chip is so focused on wanting to dig through the glass that she's not even thinking about what she would do next. Sometimes our drive and ambition takes us to a place where we don't really want to end up anyway.

Someone commented that she didn't want to be like Chip, wasting her efforts on the impossible. That isn't what bothers me about Chip's digging. My question to that person was: if you could succeed, would you be brave enough to take the next step anyway?