Ambition was something I struggled with for quite a long time. It sounds strange to say something like that, right? Ambition is often a good thing and can be a driving force for us to execute on projects or ideas. My issue with ambition stemmed from having too much of it and trying to do too many things at once. This made it very difficult to find success in any one thing, and instead have many smaller things fall flat.

On November 26, 2018, I wrote a blog post on Facebook regarding this issue. Since this post, I’ve executed on a lot of things and grew from it. Taking smaller steps has been a massive game-changer for me, and I’ve never been more excited for the future than I am today.

I’ve reflected on how things have changed over the years in a New Year’s Eve blog post. A lot has changed even since this Facebook blog post. I’ve learned that it’s best to find a focus, and love the process.

If you’d like to read the old blog-post, you can find it below in the remainder of this blog post.

Ambition Before Myself: An Enemy Within

With an abundance of unfulfilled promises, I failed myself. Within the first few years of learning what it meant to make videos, music, and other varieties of digital art, I developed an ambition that drove me mad for each following year. With every promise I made to myself, my ambition stacked into an overzealous pile of chores and false commitments. It wasn’t until these last few months that I’ve come to a satisfying, yet bittersweet understanding of myself.

Mess of a Mind

Growing up, I couldn’t handle the self inflicted agony of not knowing something. I would go out of my way to look up every little detail of every little thing until I fully understood whatever was in question. It could have been anything from a historic fact about engravings in stone found on some desolate island, to understanding how to properly write and send a check in the mail. This thirst for knowledge still aggressively follows me, because I understand how much I don’t know.

I’m not the only one who’s like this, regardless of the severity. This particular trait is part of what set up my constant failures of today, all of which were painfully celebrated in silence (barring some family and friends). I created an ambitious future at 16 years old, and I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure it would happen. Normally that sounds valiant, but then I kept adding to that ambition and changing it into something that felt unobtainable year after year. I wouldn’t even let myself work on the beginning of the race, because I was too eager to meet the finish line.

I’ve talked about huge business endeavors with the gleaming romance of owning and running a studio, possibly even multiple studios. With friends I’d mention large projects that scaled bigger than ourselves. Family would join me in long talks about the hearts and lives I would inspire with my work. The thirst for learning more would push my ambitions further, because I saw how much I wasn’t doing. All I could fathom was how much more I needed to do, and how much more I needed to learn.

It all just kept falling flat. My ambitions started to grow beyond my real capabilities that I couldn’t even reverse engineer them to understand where I should start. I lost myself in my dreams. From 16 years old until now, I’ve lived life in constant pressure of failing those I’ve promised, and failing myself. I no longer knew where to start, let alone how to end.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” – Carl Sagan

The Catalyst & Shocksense Cinema

Put simply, my ultimate dream is to own and run an entertainment studio. That doesn’t sound like a difficult task and it shouldn’t be, but over the years that dream expanded even though I have never completed anything to obtain it in the first place.

Shocksense Cinema was my most recent endeavor as of this writing, and it will be my last attempt at “starting a studio” for a long time. Due to legal reasons, I couldn’t use the name “Shocksense” and it put me in a strange mental state. It was a roadblock that forced me to evaluate every failed project, and every failed attempt at starting my dream. I’ve come up with more than 10 different potential business brands, and well over 300 creative projects that have never come to fruition. They stopped dead in their tracks because of my inability to assess the blind insatiable rage I had wrought.

You would think after seven years of over-ambitious behavior and failure, I would finally come to terms with the issue at hand, right? I’ve been viciously chasing these ambitions day by day; year by year, and I’ve never actually stopped to think about why I’ve never made real progress.

Ultimately, I decided to completely eradicate Shocksense Cinema and start from the beginning. I’ve been long overdue for a fresh start.

Renewing The Old Journey

This write-up is something I needed to do for myself. This is only the short version, and probably the best version to make public. I needed to get this out. There’s nothing worse than getting lost in your own head. For seven years I’ve lived in crippling depression and self doubt, all of which was at the fault of my own devices. On the outside I might have shown my usual goofy nature, but it’s the moments in solitude that we’re truly ourselves.

As of these last two weeks, I’ve finally found a more clear mental state to push forward on something new, and something real. Something full of less promises, and rather full of real activity and creativity. I’m here to help the world feel happier, educated, and inspired. If I can pull that off for even a small selection of people, I’ve truly done enough.

“Enough” is a word I thought I’d never be able to use regarding myself.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. This is the most vulnerable thing I have ever made public. The big dream will come with time, and at 23 years old, I’m aware of how much time I still have. This doesn’t change just how much this has affected me though. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully explain how much being overambitious has ruined portions of my life.

Just know that it has.

Now let’s go make something cool. I’m giving myself a clean slate.