A child sits in his room for 3 hours and plays a game. He's doing a repetitive task - trying to get better. Sometimes he's reading game manuals and other times he's testing player-written strategies.

Another child sits in his room for 3 hours and plays a different game. He's also doing a repetitive task. He seems to be struggling just as much as the first. He's also reading about his game, trying to get better.

Who is the more ambitious child?

Surely its the one who works more? We could measure how long each will be sitting in his room - but they both sit for 3 hours!

Surely its the one who works harder? We could compare the children's cortisol hormone levels? - But even if they were both playing the same game: their effort given isn't related the stress they're under.

Surely its the child who wins more often? We could compare their win/loss ratios - But they're playing different games!

Let me now add that the first child is playing chess, and the second child is playing for a ranked score in a highly competitive exam series.

While I concede it is uncommon to call studying: play, both the natures of the work required to be good at chess, and to study for an exam is commonly understood to be "difficult".

What if you hadn't heard of the game of chess? Logically thinking you'd reserve judgement. On the other hand, you can remember how you used to struggle to study for exams. Therefore you can probably say: "The second child is ambitious, but I don't know about the first one." Which is only slightly very different to...

The first child is just playing a game.

What's ambitious in one circle of people, is not ambitious to another. By placing value on "ambition", we let other people decide what is important to us, we inherit their desires. Sometimes we equally not only withold respect, but give disrespect to the people playing games we dont understand.