Ambition: Do You Have It?
Some people just aren’t ambitious.
Take Michael Skrzypek. The San Francisco resident was covered in the Chronicle last year. For five years, Skrzypek worked 10 weeks per year, earning enough money to finance the remaining 42.
How’d he swing that? Basically, he got lucky. He fell into the arrangement–working with legal trial presentation software–mostly due to happenstance.
So what did Skrzypek do during his 42 free weeks? Not a whole lot. He says:
It’s embarrassing to admit, but I don’t have an answer for what I did on an average day. Most days, I got up and wondered what I would do. … A lot of days I wouldn’t get out of bed. I’d just read. I liked to joke that I was the only person in the United States who read the New Yorker every week, cover to cover.
Skrzypek’s friends observed his inaction and made suggestions. One suggested he take up bluegrass guitar. Another suggested he read the complete works of Dostoevsky. Others wanted him to write short stories or volunteer at a homeless shelter.
Skrzypek wasn’t interested. He held firm: He wasn’t going to do anything; he didn’t need to be productive to be worthwhile. His desire for achievement was nil.
Skrzypek has since taken a full-time job, but only because doing nothing was getting boring. He says, “I don’t have that kind of ambition that makes people anxious or competitive.” He’s just not an ambitious person.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Though Skrzypek was torn apart by SFGate commenters, I have nothing against him. Not everyone needs to work hard or focus on achievement. I’m happy he’s living as he sees fit.
But what about you? Are you ambitious? Most people wouldn’t say they are. Ambition’s a dirty word. It brings to mind greed, competition, and workaholism. It’s seen as something you focus on if you’ve got your priorities wrong. It also means hard work: You can’t claim to be ambitious if you’re resting on your laurels. If you say you’re ambitious but you’re not doing much, you’re basically admitting you’re lazy.
That’s why far more people are ambitious than will admit it to themselves. They think ambition’s bad. They don’t want to see themselves as lazy.
How do I know this is true? Because of envy.
Envy’s a powerful emotion. We feel it when we want something someone else has: respect, experience, accomplishment, whatever. It’s a very strong–and true–form of desire.
Envy is often hard to detect because it masquerades as anger, hatred, and resentment. Rather than acknowledging envy directly, we focus negative energy on its cause. We come up with reasons–rationalizations–to make ourselves feel better. We become righteously indignant.
I’ve seen this happen in my own life. When I was in college and a struggling beginner guitar player, I tended to resent other musicians on campus. I thought their music was lousy, I thought they were pretentious — I just didn’t like them.
I now realize those feelings were caused mostly by envy. I don’t look back now and think, “Wow, those guys were brilliant!” but I do see that my feelings were more a reflection of who I was than who they were. Their music was no threat to me. My resentment was unwarranted. It was caused by my frustration with where I was as a musician.
This is a common pattern. It’s why anger and resentment–and therefore envy–point to ambition. It’s why if you feel anger and resentment you could be ambitious without knowing it. (Incidentally, this is the focus of a recent post of Jennifer McGuiggan’s at The Word Cellar, “Turn Envy into Inspiration.” Check it out — it’s good.)
So what about ambition? Isn’t it bad? I don’t think so: Ambition’s only a motivating force. It’s one that drives us to want to do remarkable things, to stand out in some way. Many amazing things have been done in the name of ambition. And of course, some awful things–and some merely pathetic or pointless ones–have also been done in its name. Ambition by itself is neither good nor bad.
I know I’m ambitious. I want to be interesting and remarkable. I know I’m much better off acknowledging that than hiding in a cloud of resentment.
That’s why I’ve chosen to focus my energy on conscientious ambition. Ambition doesn’t have to be about accumulating vast quantities of money or attaining some narcissistic ideal. Conscientious ambition is focusing your ambitious tendencies on making the world a better place. It’s doing things like working to right wrongs, improve people’s quality of life, and produce things of beauty.
Ambition can be a great thing. Do you have it?
I would say the opposite is true. There are many people who are afraid to admit that they are not actually ambitious and just embrace the fact that they are just lazy.
I think it’s true that some people might want to *hide* the fact that they are ambitious, but I’m not sure I can think of people who really do think ambition is bad.
kim
14 Sep 09 at 10:30 am
Hey Kim, as we were discussing over e-mail, it’s probably the case that the “most people” we’re referring to are different given our different living situations (San Francisco vs. LA).
I’d like to quote a thought from one of the comments to the SFGate article I mentioned: “New York is where you go to live if you’re ambitious and smart, Los Angeles is where you go if you’re ambitious but not smart, and San Francisco is where you go if you’re smart but not ambitious.” (No offense intended
)
I encounter the “ambition is bad” view pretty often. I think people hide their ambitions (either from themselves or others) because of the stigma.
But you’re right — there are certainly people who feel pressure from others to be “doing something with their lives” (like the guy in the article) who just aren’t ambitious. Maybe you should write an article about that side of the coin
miketuritzin
14 Sep 09 at 12:17 pm
I can’t understand the sentiment that ambition is bad and I can’t understand why smart people would ever think that. San Francisco is really weird. And hey, I agree with the SF Gate thing, except there are a lot of really smart people in Los Angeles, along with the stupid people.
I somehow didn’t notice this laziness being characteristic about San Francisco until my last trip (apparently it’s common knowledge) but San Francisco is a really strange place and as beautiful as it is, and as many wonderful friends as I have there, I could never live there because of that sentiment. I remember being told at Stanford that people like to pretend to be laid back, even though they worked hard when no one was looking. I’m not sure why people may have clung to this idea, and I also feel that if these people went to other colleges they might not mask/lack ambition.
I composed a blog post months ago about how ambitious and professional my Harvard counterparts in LA seem to be, trying to figure out the differences between the two schools. I decided not to publish it on my blog, but I do think there are stark differences here. Frankly, I think there are stark differences between the Bay Area and everywhere else, even if NY and LA are on the far end of the ambition spectrum.
But the thing I just don’t understand: yes, some bad things happen (i.e. Wall Street mortgage fiasco) when ambition and money are the only things that drive a person, but you don’t need to aspire to make money in order to be ambitious. You can be ambitious in a creative sense, and you can be driven in non-profit work. So how is ambition getting a bad rap here? What’s so good about laziness?
Who’s going to be running the country/companies/organizations/making art if the smart people don’t think it is worthwhile to be ambitious?
kim
14 Sep 09 at 7:09 pm
I agree with Kim, its requires a lot of courage to admit that you are not ambitious. My experience is that that not being ambitious is considered as a negative trait.
pankaj
12 Feb 10 at 10:23 pm
It’s ok to not be ambitious. Ambition has become a forced emotion due to the increase in productivity requirements of today’s society. The goal should be humbleness. Since there are billions of people, chances are some of them are fit to become the “runners of contries/companies/organizations/making art”, etc, since a lot of that natural ambition is a result of their up-bringing and immediate environment. If you think about it, I’d rather have those people in the aforementioned positions than people who are there just because they felt they needed to do something with their lives.
Chris
17 Jun 10 at 9:19 am
I am highly ambitious person and I must hide it, not because I am ashamed of that feeling but because many people just don’t understand why would someone like to be successful. They say that they would like to be successful but everything ends up with telling stories and 0% of work.
I think that only very wise and smart people are ambitious and they are achievers.One part of success in life is dealing with people. Of course with the right people. I can’t hang out with lazy people.
Also I am aware that beside my wife I have only one true friend so why would I sacrifice my success for “peer approval” . Face it, when you are successful , people like you will love you and others will hate you.
Happy Duck
29 Nov 11 at 5:40 am
I don’t even know where to start. Ambition is a term used loosely. Heck, I’ve used the term loosely. I’m not even sure I completely know what the word “ambition” means. I like to think that it means to strive for something you want, and in the process doing whatever it takes to accomplish it. I’ve strived for things, I’ve strived for similar success as those I see with people around me. If I’m accurate in that depiction, then I suppose I’m ambitious.
But at the same time, I feel as if I’ve done absolutely nothing to fulfill my ambition. Am I lazy? I would say yes! Do I care about being successful? I feel I do, but do I care enough to actually do something about it? Historically my actions would point to no.
I’m 31 now and unemployed for the third time in the last 4 years. I graduated with my Bachelor’s back in 2004, and since then I’ve mainly worked in the Sales industry. Of the three times I’ve become unemployed, two of them were due to a lack of performance (Sales). I’ve had a number of jobs in the last seven or so years and I can’t seem to hold on to one for a long enough time to establish myself and to gain respect from a professional perspective. As I said, I’ve been in the Sales and customer service industry since I graduated college and I want out of it. I’ve surmounted a lot of debt for myself over this time, and my credit has suffered throughout the process. I live a lifestyle out of my means that I just can’t continue to support. I know that in these sales type jobs I’ve had it takes a lot of hard work and motivation to be successful. I’ve always known that, yet I’ve always done the bare minimum. I have an extremely hard time staying motivated. I like to think I’m motivated by money, and in sales thats important. But the fact of the matter is, I would rather have a good time and use my time foolishly instead of embracing the opportunities I’ve had to make the necessary money and notoriety to pay my debt and put myself in a good financial position to make something of my life.
I’m 31 and I’m in no better position now than I was when I was in college. I’ve been blessed with a close and loving family. I’ve been given all the opportunities to make a name for myself and I’ve done nothing with them. I also recently got married to my gf of over 5 years. So needless to say, she’s stuck with me through all these issues I’ve been having with myself, unemployment, debt, etc. But she continues to get more and more frustrated with my lack of progression in life. She has her “ducks in a row” but I don’t. My friends and family have their “ducks in a row” and I don’t. Success is all around me, and I continue to just watch everyone else coast past me on the “highway of life”.
I spend a lot of time thinking of what I can do to make myself better. At the same time, I find myself thinking of where the next party or good time is. People generally really like me, yet very few take me seriously. I’m a goof, a joker, an underacheiver who just wants to have a good time and make people laugh. These are good qualities I know, but not when I don’t have my priorities in order. Quite simply I’ve never been able to get my life together.
I know I’m still relatively young, but the clock is ticking. Where’s my motivation? Where’s my drive? When am I going to snap out of this??? I need to dig deep and find myself, find the tools I’m confident I have to make myself a better person.
To those who have actually had the patience to read all of this thank you. Any suggestions or remedies are certainly welcome.
Best,
T
Tony
25 Jan 12 at 8:02 am