Make it your ambition.

"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." 1 Thes. 4:11-12

What does ambition really mean?
Well in English it means
"an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment"
in Greek it means
"to strive earnestly, make it one's aim"

Our philosophy in life should be centered around these verses. Why would Paul write this if it shouldn't?
Lead a quite life, in Proverbs is says that the words of the wise are like jewels to the ears. A synonym to ambition is study, and if you practice being wise, usually the effect of wisdom is silence.
Mind your own business is usually a tough one. I sometimes can't help but get in peoples business, and usually it brings me some downfall, first with my reputation because people might think I just want to hear the gossip or slip something that i shouldn't have said, and secondly it makes people abuse you, not in a physical way, but they just start using you without any thought to your wellbeing. It doesn't mean you shouldn't help people, just do it wisely.
Work with your hands, with the technology that we use today how do we use our hands instead of electronics? Well we shouldn't use people either. To mind your own business helps to be not be abused, but on the other hand you shouldn't use people either, people are unreliable. You could get your best friend, but you still can't solely rely on them, they are eventually going to fall.
In the 12th verse of Thes. it says that "so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." It really sums up the verse before. Lead a quite life, mind your own business, and work with your hands. If you want to be respected you should follow this, and if you want to be independent follow this, but it does not mean independence from God just independence from people.

Make this your philosophy in life, and you won't go wrong.