How do we find real happiness? How do we mold our lives in a way that helps ourselves and those that we love? Are my drives, my ambitions, helping me to do my work on this planet? Or am I chasing phantoms and ideas and objects and lifestyles that ultimately don’t serve me, my loved ones, or future generations?

I was deeply entrenched within this line of questioning when a good friend emailed me an old Fast Company article which tells the magnificent story of Larry Brilliant (medical doctor, epidemiologist, technologist, activist, and author) then the CEO of SoftNet Systems Inc. and the inventor of the first, prototypical, online community—the WELL. His odyssey is summarized by one simple statement, “Every day,” Brilliant says, “I struggle with ambition. Every day, I try to understand the meaning of this line: ‘Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious.’”

As I pondered ambition and Dr. Brilliant’s wonderful story, I discovered that he is co-founder of the Seva Foundation (watch their video, Service as a Spiritual Practice), which was recently granted One Wish to Change the World from the TED Foundation, and just last week he was named Executive Director of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google.

His mantra of ambition, to live ambitiously but without ambition, is the centerpiece of Nish Kan Karma yoga. “Yoga means ‘being yoked,’” says Brilliant. “In yoga, the individual self is liked to the larger soul, Brahma, which, in Hindu, means ‘the mind of God.’ You have one job: to find out who you are. Like the asymptote, the mathematical function, you are always approaching your goal, but you never achieve it. You are always reaching for the flame, but you’ll never be the flame. You always fail. You always aspire.”

So what’s Dr. Brilliant’s first task at Google.org? Read about it here.

Photo credit: Seva Foundation