Ambition is the drive that pushes people to succeed. It helps people to focus on their goals, and to always try their hardest. And yet, many people suffer from too much ambition. In the short story “The Egg” by Sherwood Anderson, the narrator’s family is completely driven by their ambition to move up in the world. Before the father became ambitious he was a simple, happy man. He was content to be a farm hand, and to spend all of his time with friends and family. After owning a chicken farm he becomes eerily obsessed with the deformed chickens that never survive to adulthood, and eventually he reaches the brink of insanity when he fails to entertain one of his young guests at his restaurant. I think that this short story is very relevant to young adults living the college life, because depending on how we deal with our own ambitions, we can become either very successful or, like the unfortunate man in “The Egg”, allow them to gain control of us and make us crazy.
Most children begin talking about what they want to be when they grow up at a very young age. Even though many of their ambitions are somewhat unrealistic, like “the president of the United States” or “a movie star”, they still have every intention of following through and living their dreams. The narrator in the “The Egg” is so overcome by his parents ambitions and plans that he doesn’t have room for any of his own. The only life he knew while growing up was life on a chicken farm and because of this, he is a very sad child. At one point in the story he attempts to imitate the other children in his school that skip around happily, but he just isn’t capable. Of course, as children grow older they become more realistic about their futures, but they still dream about them and plan for them, there are very few people who hope for no future at all. We are all instilled with this natural instinct to push ourselves, to be ambitious, and to make a place for ourselves in this world.
Then, we head off to college, where we get to actually create our future, and here is where a lot of ambition can go bad. People feel too stressed about their classes, too pressured about their futures, that often times they, just like the father in “The Egg” can snap. The father wants to entertain his customer so badly, it is his main goal, but when his attempts continue to fail, he becomes so angry that he lashes out at his customer. Many students handle the pressure of college in a healthy way, without lashing out, but still a lot of people turn to drugs and alcohol to help themselves deal. They become so wrapped up in their social lives that they lose their ambition completely. Their grades begin to slip, and soon the find that they have lost their chance to be the person that they always wanted to be. just as the father realizes he will never be the entertainer he dreamed of being.
Some young adults arrive at college, and then realize that their whole life they had been living for the ambition of someone else, like a parent. They find that their “dream” was never really their dream at all, and then they must recreate their entire self-vision. Many parents like the mother in “The Egg”, look at their children and see all of the amazing things they could do with their life. So they push their children, they try to make them into the people they think they should be. In “The Egg” the mother decides to own a chicken farm because she thinks it will help her son to rise in the world. Instead, it scars him for life, making him morbid, and depressed. Many parents may find that when their children go off to college all of their great plans for them backfire.
The right balance of ambition can make or break you in the college life. Students must learn to deal with the stress that comes from pushing yourself to succeed, but they must also learn to keep themselves in check, and not become overwhelmed. Students must learn to choose the life they want, and to work for it. But never to allow the drive to overcome them, or else they could end up on the brink of insanity, throwing eggs at a stranger.
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