The recent high profile divorce between Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, and his wife of 26 years Mackenzie Bezos, clearly showed that a personal ambition does outgrow an intimate relationship.
Jeff is not the first nor will be the last public high profile relationship that lagged behind ambition. Warren Buffett and his wife Susan Buffett separated in 1977 after 25 years of marriage that resulted in three children.
Ray Kroc, the founder of global fast food chain McDonald, divorced his wife of 39 years and followed his ambition of taking the fast food concept nationally and internationally – at the age of 52.
Can an ambition outgrow a marriage?
Prior to the British Industrial Revolution in the mid 17th century, the average lifespan for the global population was in the range of 30 to 40 years.
With average puberty began from 12 to 15 years of age, there was approximately 15 to 25 years for a person to chase his/her endeavor.
Most people devoted the short and precious time to procreate. Very few were able to procreate and successfully fulfilled his/her personal endeavor within the short time span.
All were changed in just little over two and half centuries later!
The average life expectancy for the global citizens has doubled to 70 to 80 years. With the exception of the poverty region in the continent of Africa, most countries educated their citizens the practice of birth control – as a global mean of curtailing the burgeoning world population.
With so much time left beyond the pro-creation years, coupled with the higher standard of living – people began to explore and exercise their personal creativity.
Many ambitions that changed the world began their infancies from within these personal creativities.
If ambition is the growing up version of personal creativity – why it is a possible source of failed marriages?
The answer embedded in the word “personal” – it is a “Self” journey!
Any endeavor in life that is exclusively defined within the “Self” boundary – will have a low probability of finding an intimate partner that will fully share and totally support the same drive.As depicted in the figure below, the two “Selves”, by a natural process, will only invest personal time and scarce resource toward the drive that each Self has defined in his/her own circle of ambition.
Overlapped and shared ambition is the foundation for all long lasting relationship!
Procreation happened to be a shared ambition that is naturally endowed in the majority of the population – it is defined at the species level as a common denominator.
This is reason why the ninety-nine percents of puberties consistently want to make babies –whereas geniuses’ lifelong ambition is more than just procreation takes off at the same moment of time.
In any case, the natural process has clearly demonstrated that a rich and intimate relationship is only possible with a shared drive – the greater the overlap the greater in meaning of the relationship.
The high profile and public failed marriages from the exclusive club of the society evidently revealed simple facts –
- Money has a limit in the making of a quality marriage.
- The current definition of success for the modern culture does not include a long lasting marriage.
- Ambition, useful or not, in the second half of life – has the potential of destroying a marriage.
Unfortunately, these facts applied to the general population as the mass has always looked up to the affluent socialites as the yardstick to measure their own life.
So with all the money and power in the world, the best of humanity can only make a typical marriage lasted 15 to 25 years on the average – what is the game plan for the general population?
May be it is time for a cultural revolution formally defines where the lifespan of the population can be divided into two parts –
- Phase one, the first 40 years, is devoted to build and care for one’s own personal family – the procreation years.
- Phase two, the later 40 years, is invested toward one’s own personal ambition – the personal creativity years.
Phases one and two can be executed independently from each other. The two parts do not require the same team in the participation – divorcing will no longer carry a negative tone and is accepted as simply a process that facilitates the transition through a rite of passage.
Interestingly, this idea is being informally executed around the world at a high frequency – as the standard of living is climbing along with the longer life span.
The current data resulted from thousands of scientific studies do encourage greater investment toward the building of meaningful, deep and caring relationship.
The short coming of the modern science of relationship is in the specificity – which is the best game plan – one intimate relationship for life or serial relationships along the way.
It is logical to deduce from common sense with the wait for science to validate – one intimate relationship that survived through the test of time is unequivocally superior to two or more serial relationships in the same time span.
It is part of being human being. The relationship that means most to us is the one we have invested a substantial personal resource over a long stretch of time and it fits as a piece of puzzle – the center piece.
Figure below illustrated the complexity in the pursuit an ambition – the center piece represents the required intimate relationship that is needed to complete the puzzle of all ambitions.
It is an established reality that the world population is living longer and better.
It is natural for everyone to inquire and explore his/her natural creativity. With enough passion injected into the new found creativity, it is very possible that the creativity will transform into an ambition – the kind of ambition you were not fortunate enough to develop at puberty.
Statistically for every ten years beyond puberty, a personal creativity will lose about 30 percents of probability of potential in the transformation into an ambition that is useful beyond the life of the owner.
Of the three public and high profile game changers mentioned at the beginning of the article, Ray Kroc was the rare late bloomer genius unlike Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos – the majority creativities found later in life remained as personal hobbies.
All these men demonstrated that the human potential is vast and infinite. Each of men personal creativity was invested with the proper passion and determination that led to the eventual transformation the type of ambitions that change the world prior to their presence at the game of life.
Tragically, their ambitions out lasted their personal relationships.
Bill Gates, another game changer, who first love is technology. He will be remembered long after he died as the founder of Microsoft.
What most people will do not realize is that Bill is the living example of love and ambition is possible. Strategically in the second half of Bill’s game of life, he decided that philanthropy is the shared ambition that will take his marriage into the sunset – he is having the cake and eating it all the way!
Since Bill Gates is a public figure, he is used in the example for the purpose of demonstration of the reality and all the possibilities from within – not to say Bill Gates is the only one who has successfully found the perfect formula for love and ambition.
You too can concoct your own love and ambition game strategy and bring it onto the playing field – only if you step away from the fixation of your own reflection in the mirror.
Let’s play the game of life!
