Phipps Tips: Ambition
When our generation was young, we heard a lot of encouraging words from parents and teachers that if we worked hard enough, we could be anything. All we had to do was be ambitious — dream big! This lesson may have been true, but it’s only a partial truth.
Ambition is about more than just seeking a high-paying, high-stress job at a prestigious company. It’s about more than having a career trajectory that’s impressive on paper. Because we spend so much time at work, we forget that our jobs don’t actually define us. You’re doubly screwed if you’re surrounded, as I am, with people who are working hard (and often succeeding) to make their creative passions into their careers. It’s true that there are some people for whom their job is their identity. Some people out there are lucky enough to have a vocation, a calling, that aligns with how they make money to survive.
But there are a lot of jobs out there in the world, and very few people are born with a tremendous drive to do data entry or HR. I can’t stand it when anyone tries to put those people down or make them seem inferior because they’re not slaving away on the next great American novel. That’s not always what everyone wants to do. In my mind, the people who do those things have vocations that fall outside of the bounds of a career. You may well be one of those people.
You say you’re working on creative projects, making time for family and friends, cultivating a great relationship, and still making time to take care of yourself. You’re not pretending that the fact that your current contentment doesn’t preclude your shit from hitting a hypothetical future fan, but you sound secure in what you’ve managed to accomplish. This doesn’t sound like the life of a lazy person to me.
If you’re young, having a well-rounded life — a job that that helps you survive comfortably, healthy relationships with people, activities that fulfill you beyond receiving a paycheck — offers a kind of security that we’ve been told is only attainable through our careers. That’s just not always true. Being ambitious in your job is only one way to be ambitious.
Let me indulge a bit and quote some of my favorite pieces of pop culture. The first quote is from one of my all-time favorite movies, Say Anything… in which a tender and beautifully small-mouthed John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler is being grilled by his girlfriend’s father about his career ambitions post-graduation. He says this:
“What I really want to do with my life — what I want to do for a living — is I want to be with your daughter. I’m good at it.”
What I love about this is that it reframes the idea that what we do with our lives has to be what we do for our jobs. It doesn’t! The thing you want to do with your life can be as simple as loving someone. Being a good significant other, or parent, or friend. You should find a job that doesn’t destroy your will to live, but it doesn’t matter if what you do at work isn’t impressive or prestigious as long as it enables you to live the life you want to live.
The other piece of pop culture is from Beyoncé’s self titled visual album, from the brief interlude in the song “Pretty Hurts” in which, while performing in a fictional beauty pageant, contestant Beyoncé is asked the question, “what is your aspiration in life?”
Beyoncé responds, “my aspiration in life would be… to be happy.”
I know this sounds ridiculous coming from someone as undeniably ambitious as Beyoncé, someone who clearly has a calling and has turned it into an extremely lucrative career, but her message still rings true.
Your ambition, your aspiration, the thing you want to do with your life, doesn’t have to be your job. It can be something else. You might not know exactly what it is yet, but it sounds to me like you’re on the right track to figuring it out and taking on whatever challenges come as you discover your true vocation.
And it really can be something as simple as “to have a good life.”