Society based on Acquisitiveness & Ambition...

• Questioner: It is true that society is based on acquisitiveness and
  ambition; but if we had no ambition would we not decay?
• Krishnamurti: This is really a very important question, and it needs
  great attention. Do you know what attention is? Let us find out. In a class
  room, when you stare out of the window or pull somebody's hair, the teacher
  tells you to pay attention. Which means what? That you are not interested in
  what you are studying and so the teacher compels you to pay attention - which is
  not attention at all. Attention comes when you are deeply interested in
  something, for then you love to find out all about it; then your whole mind,
  your whole being is there. Similarly, the moment you see that this question - if
  we had no ambition, would we not decay? - is really very important, you are
  interested and want to find out the truth of the matter. Now, is not the
  ambitious man destroying himself? That is the first thing to find out, not to
  ask whether ambition is right or wrong. Look around you, observe all the people
  who are ambitious. What happens when you are ambitious? You are thinking about
  yourself, are you not? You are cruel, you push other people aside because you
  are trying to fulfil your ambition, trying to become a big man, thereby creating
  in society the conflict between those who are succeeding and those who are
  falling behind. There is a constant battle between you and the others who are
  also after what you want; and is this conflict productive of creative living? Do
  you understand, or is this too difficult? Are you ambitious when you love to do
  something for its own sake? When you are doing something with your whole being,
  not because you want to get somewhere, or have more profit, or greater results,
  but simply because you love to do it - in that there is no ambition, is there?
  In that there is no competition; you are not struggling with anyone for first
  place. And should not education help you to find out what you really love to do
  so that from the beginning to the end of your life you are working at something
  which you feel is worth while and which for you has deep significance?
  Otherwise, for the rest of your days, you will be miserable. Not knowing what
  you really want to do, your mind falls into a routine in which there is only
  boredom, decay and death. That is why it is very important to find out while you
  are young what it is you really love to do; and this is the only way to create a
  new society.
• This
  Matter of Culture, Chepter-1,
• J.
  Krishnamurti