Is being "ambitious" ; automatically a good thing?

I think it depends on what your ambition is. My ambition is to step outside the front door without help. An athlete's might be to win a gold medal.

I think the problem comes when people are encouraged to have naked ambition when the goal is everything no matter how many people you tread on or what you have to do to achieve it. Unfortunately naked ambition seems to have become admirable in some quarters and is promoted as a good thing.

Ambition is for the ambitious! High pressure business jobs have never been my scene.

Contentment is valued higher in my book - but may be the ambitious are content with their lot.

In my career I made a conscious decision not to climb the ladder but to stay "on the ground" and care for my patients/clients rather than pen-pushing and form-filling.

Many people, such as my sister, would be deeply unhappy if they had to take a job with a lot of responsibility and stress. We need more Indians than Chiefs.

We need people who are happy to do a job well without feeling they have to climb to the top of the pile. What a nasty rat race life would be otherwise.

Absent got there with the Macbeth quote before me.

I see ambition as a good thing. I fail to see where we would be without it. It goes without saying that progression in life shouldn't be at the expense of compassion. Surely ambition is the major driving force in many fields: science, business, sport etc. I think the OP is confusing ambition with the pursuit of power or money for their own ends. I would always encourage anyone to aim high and do their best, whatever that might be.

Nor anyone else around him!

^I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.^

Naked ambition didn't do Macbeth a lot of good.