The Cost of Wanting More

For a long time, I lived the life I wanted. I was with the people I chose, in places I once dreamed of calling home. From the outside, nothing appeared unresolved. Stability was available. Progress was visible. By most measures, I had arrived.

Yet wanting more does not disappear simply because life looks complete. Ambition does not announce itself loudly when it is ignored. It waits. When left unexamined, it becomes a quiet force that reshapes how a person moves through the world.

Ambition is not something that can be postponed or transferred to another person. It must be faced directly. When it is not, it turns inward. Unresolved ambition does not vanish. It emerges as restlessness, resentment, and emotional distance. Over time, it seeps into relationships and asks others to carry a dissatisfaction that was never theirs to bear.

This understanding leads to a difficult conclusion. In a shared life, avoiding one's ambition is not an act of sacrifice. It is an act of deferral. I would rather someone leave because I chose to pursue what matters to me than remain while I avoided it and quietly grew resentful. The first outcome is painful but honest. The second is corrosive.

This principle informs how I choose to live.

People often ask why I spend days camping, why I try skydiving, why I jump from cliffs near Victoria Falls, or why I backpack for weeks or months at a time, moving slowly and accepting discomfort when ease is available. To many, these choices appear unnecessary or even reckless. They do not resemble stability as it is commonly defined.

But these decisions are not about danger or novelty. They are about maintaining clarity. Discomfort removes distraction. It narrows attention and forces confrontation with questions that convenience allows one to avoid. In unfamiliar conditions, it becomes difficult to pretend that dissatisfaction will resolve itself without action.

Trying something new is not a rejection of responsibility. It is a recognition of it. Failure is possible, sometimes inevitable, but failure has structure and consequence. Avoidance does not. I would rather fail openly than succeed quietly while suppressing the extent of my own capacity. At minimum, I retain the certainty that I did not abandon myself for comfort.

The same reasoning applies to relationships.

Ambition is a personal responsibility. It cannot be assigned to another person and described as compromise. In partnership, responsibility becomes more precise, not less. Love is not sustained by affection alone but by how two adults manage their inner lives while building something shared. It requires honesty before harmony and accountability before accommodation.

In many environments, emotional distance is mistaken for strength and detachment is rewarded as sophistication. I have chosen a different discipline. Kindness, when genuine, is not passivity. It is restraint. It is the refusal to make others absorb the consequences of one's unexamined desires. Kindness paired with ambition requires a person to confront themselves before asking anything of someone else.

Being kind does not require becoming smaller. Perseverance does not require remaining at all costs. There are moments when the most responsible action is to acknowledge divergence rather than allow unresolved ambition to distort what could have been mutual respect.

If a shared life is to endure, it must be constructed by individuals who have first taken responsibility for themselves. Without that foundation, what appears to be sacrifice gradually becomes erosion.

This is why I accept risk and discomfort. This is why I pursue ambition deliberately. And this is why I choose clarity over convenience. Unresolved ambition is more destructive than failure. I would rather live honestly, with uncertainty, than remain in a life shaped by avoidance.