Ambition as attachment
I have a confession. I'm not sure what ambition really means. I know a popular definition has to do with goals: pursuing high status goals is ambitious.
I don't like this definition. Most people would consider wanting to be good at chess more ambitious than wanting to be good at video games, even though both are just made-up games. The distinction of what is high status is arbitrary.
Another definition has to do with difficultly. Someone is ambitious if they want to do a difficult thing. This is a little better. But would you say someone is ambitious solely for wanting to do a difficult thing? There is a difference between having an ambition and being ambitious.
Instead of first trying to define ambition, let’s see what qualities are prevalent across people we would consider to be ambitious. A common quality I see is a sense of discontent. Ambitious people aren’t satisfied until they get what they want.
I like this definition the best. It has less to do with the goal, and more to do with the attachment to the goal. To be ambitious is to want something really really bad. Bad enough that you actually go out there are try to make it happen. So bad that you can never be happy until you get it.
As a student, I've struggled with making school my full-time job. I think wouldn't it be nice to only focus on classes and getting good grades? life would be so straightforward.
I like the idea of only worrying about one thing. It gives you a clear purpose and direction. But school never feels like the right thing to be focusing on—there is always something else more exciting and more important.
When I mentioned this to a friend, he said it was a common experience for ambitious people. This caught me off guard because I don't consider myself extremely ambitious. I don't have a burning desire to change the world, make a billion dollars, or be the best at something. I also don’t have an urge to do difficult things.
But what I do have are strong feelings about how I want to live. I have an idea of what I want my life to look like, and I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied until I achieve it.
For the past few years, I've felt discontent—even unhappy at times—because there is a gap between the person I want to be and the person I am, and the path to closing that gap is unclear.
I'm anxious all the time, I think I’m behind in life, and I feel lost. I look at other people to see if they feel the same, but they don't worry and seem to have their lives figured out. I'm realizing that this is because we are ambitious in different ways.
I'm reading the new Elon Musk biography, and I’ve noticed that the qualities that make someone successful, often contribute to their flaws. For example, with Elon
He is obsessive. This lets him work insane hours for long stretches of time, but also makes it hard for him to maintain personal relationships.
He is laser focused and good at putting aside emotions. These traits help him make tough business decisions, but also make it hard to empathize with people.
My ambition, or whatever you want to call it, is why I do what I do. Every nonconventional thing I’ve pursued is, at least partly, a search for a missing piece that might close the gap between my current self and my ideal self. But it’s also the reason I’m discontent, anxious, and confused.
I don't know how to have one without the other, or if it's even possible. I don’t consider my ambition to be a bad thing. I’m glad I do what I do. Looking back at the last few years of my life, I’m really really happy with how I spend my time—even if it makes me unhappy.
Updates & links
This Naval podcast was influential for me. The line that stands out is “desire is a contract you make to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
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Some photos I took in Italy:
