Do people genuinely have modest ambitions, or are they avoiding the mental stress of thinking about how remote their true ambitions are from what's realistically attainable?
The "big ambitions" (and specifically, those not of the good kind, like e.g. becoming a doctor and such, but the "private pool", expensive car, lotsa money variety) have been shoehorned into the average American mind through over a century of indoctrination, advertisement, and propaganda.
It's all about making people never be content with their material belongings and thinking that the next purchase or achievement unlocked with make them happy.
E.g. https://www.amazon.com/Captains-Consciousness-Advertising-Co...
I would estimate that around 90% of the people I know who want to become a doctor (around 30 people) are motivated solely by the desire to make lotsa money and be able to drive an expensive car. Just saying, I don't think you can easily divide ambitions into "good" and "bad.
There far easier ways to go about getting more money than spend over a decade in studying for it, plus all the hard work that comes afterwards.
More people that get into medicine that I know of either are idealistic, like the lifestyle (as portrayed on TV), had parents that were themselves doctors, or do it for the prestige. The money is not the biggest factor.
In finance you can be very dependent on the market conditions, same in law (without a lot of business activity businesses don’t need to consult lawyers), in research you are also very dependent on the hype around your field to get grants, starting your own successful business is brutal if you don’t find the right opportunities or network of people, engineering is no cake walk of study either (especially adding in the work to stay relevant in the field) and joining a startup for good money is absolutely not a secure employment.
There will always be a need of medical personel however and since it requires a license given out by a few institutions you can be sure that your field will not be oversaturated, especially as it’s hard to obtain said license through study. Again, not saying it is easy becoming an MD, but if you are a competent person the path to a secure, good paying job is clearer if you choose med school than engineering, law, graduate or finance.
It is, but it also has a much smaller earnings cap than other professions. So "for the money" here means "for decent enough money but nothing to write home about".
And depending on the country surgeons in specific fields can make obscene amounts of money. Neuro surgeons have a median salary of almost $600 000 in the US and to earn that much money as an engineer you have probably co-founded a successful startup or become an executive.
Old good "follow your passion"?
The people were so kind and thoughtful. I didn’t ask them about their aspirations all that often, but they often seemed content with their life as it was. Every once in a while you would get someone who had higher ambitions e.g. those who wanted to move out into the city.
Seeing their contentment and the time I spent there helped me realize that happiness doesn’t need to come from material things and having more than everyone else. I feel American culture has often tried to teach me otherwise. Sad.
I don't this is how our psyche works. I think our psyche works in more practical ways, relativity is what's important. We feel rich or poor relative to yesterday, or our parents, or neighbours. We feel satisfied with our IQ, sex life, life expectancy or health and such in a similar, relative way.
I think what these results speak to is where the default goal flag sits, not how motivated, how active or how "genuinely" ambitious were are. We want 10%-50% more money, intelligence, sex, friends and career successes. We can express this as 10 percent more or 10 rabbits more. The specific quantification doesn't matter.