Is it still cool to be ambitious?

Reframing the scope of our desires | 2 min read

Photo by Mike Kiev

I don’t feel all that ambitious.

And it’s a little shameful to admit because ambition has gotten us to the moon, improved cancer treatments, and created art that tells us as much about the human condition as actually living it can.

But it’s kind of a dirty word now, having been co-opted by modern day villains who tie it closer to money, power, and ego than great works. Consider Putin’s grip on Russia, Bezos’s marketplace of everything, and Carlson’s lies for ratings. Bad men who’ve gotten good results. Who might have started with a kernel of a greater calling but were seduced by the wayward carrots leading to the top of their respective grifts.

The dangerous part is that it’s a one-way street. Even the richest and most powerful can’t seem to take their foot off the gas. And when everything feels like it has to be ratcheted up further than the last go-round, the most ruthless will be rewarded. To the victors will go the spaceflights.

Justin Kan, the cofounder of Twitch, a streaming platform for gamers that Amazon acquired for nearly a billion dollars in 2014, speaks to the way this one-upmanship follows you up the mountaintop and manifests even in the wake of great success:

“Sure, I’d done well, but I had friends who had done even better. My ego was hungry and wanted to be fed. The desire for more nagged constantly at me.

I decided to…start another new company. This time, I settled on the concept in the most mercenary way I could think of: all I wanted was to create the biggest possible company.

When millions of dollars and market leadership can be minimized by the weight of ever-increasing expectations, it’s time to reevaluate our metrics for success and reclaim the scope of ambition.

So how do we reframe or strip ambition back to the self-improvement tool it’s always been? If your idea of challenging yourself is by starting a company or inventing a new product, I’m rooting for you, but the goalposts can’t always be a million dollar exit.

We’ve got to normalize celebrating a successful small business that supports a few employees and serves its neighborhood year after year.

We’ve got to recognize local journalists, teachers, and parents who aren’t going after the “big problems,” but sure do stand their communities in good stead. Because Amazon can’t teach our kids, and USA Today doesn’t profit from covering local beats.

We’ve got to watch the moonshots with the same awe that we reserve for a single mother who’s raised a great kid because it’s downright ambitious to pursue these vocations in the face of the waning dignity we afford them.

It’s not just these examples, though. Everyone has their own calling that activates an energy that feels as close as we may get to divining our purpose here. And we should should answer its call even if it means toiling with little to show for it other than a few carefully crafted sentences.

Because someone else might read them, or watch a film, or follow a scientific process that leads them to their own light. And that’s worth dreaming about.