These words are comparable in that they all refer to people who desire or are actively striving towards the attainment of some goal. Opportunistic is used to describe a person who takes advantage of every opportunity presented to him that contributes to the achievement of his end, and who is relatively uninfluenced by moral principles or sentiment: an opportunistic young man who rose from office boy to office manager by callously using everyone who could further his career. Ambitious , like opportunistic , is applied to someone who purposefully utilizes opportunities but, unlike opportunistic , this word need not always have pejorative connotations. Ambitious people may or may not be principled. What they must always be is eager and active in the pursuit of the wealth, power, honours or whatever else they have chosen as their goal: a very talented singer who was not ambitious might at times be described by the more informal and almost always derogatory term pushy . In its application to different people pushy may suggest offensiveness, bossiness or crudeness: a pushy social climber; a pushy advertising cadet.

Aspiring is a milder and more neutral word than the others in this group. It does not necessarily have the suggestions of drive and energy that are implicit in opportunistic and ambitious , and it is certainly devoid of the pejorative connotations in pushy . An aspiring person seeks something above himself, as excellence for its won sake, and the word usually implies lofty ideals: an aspiring politician who refused to compromise his principles in return for favours from party hacks.