Always Wanting More Isn’t A Bad Thing
It’s a three day weekend and I’m trying to take it easy.
I say trying because I’m one of those people who have to make an effort to take it easy. I’m not high-strung. In fact, I’m actually pretty chill.

I just mean I don’t like sitting still watching TV for very long. I think part of the reason why is because I wrestle on the daily with existential thoughts.
Like, what is the point? Why am I doing everything that I’m currently doing? To give a little context to that, I’ve got:
- A published book of poetry
- A debut novella on the way
- A full time job
- A small business (which is like another full time job)
- A degree — but I’m going to grad school for another one (why though)
- Great friends, great family, great friends who are like family, and what is quickly becoming a handful of nieces to spoil
Why do I wake up every single day at 6:00 AM?
WHAT AM I CHASING? And the honest answer is I don’t know.
This isn’t some emotional cry for help or anything like that. I’m happy. Scratch that, I am extremely happy. I am so blessed in so many areas of life it is absolutely ridiculous.
I’m grateful for everything that I have and I’m appreciative of who I am and how I got to this point in life and all of the amazing people who have supported me along the way.
I try very hard to take very little for granted. But the thing is…I always want more. I want to do more. I want and I want and I want and I’m just like…why?
Where does that come from? Why am I like that? Why is enough never enough, ya know? Why am I always chasing something?
It’s not because I don’t appreciate what I have. I know that much.
The root of it all, I think, is ambition.

Ambition is simultaneously a curse and a blessing. It’s a blessing because without ambition you’re just kind of treading water; it’s ambition that makes you dive in and swim in new waters to new places you never could have imagined in your wildest dreams.
On the other hand, ambition is also a curse because it’s not getting to that destination or achieving what you set out to achieve that satisfies your ambition. It’s the actual chasing. It’s the doing.
The hunger monster that is ambition only feels satiated when you’re feeding it. Which means doing something. Which means not sitting on your butt playing Playstation all day (even though Playstation is awesome).
So every time that someone who’s ambitious tries to stop, even if it’s just for Labor Day weekend, they stop feeling satisfied. The ambition monster always demands more.
Not everyone experiences this. Not everybody knows what it’s like to be cursed/blessed with ambition. Ambition is not something we all universally share. If that hurts your feelings, you’ll get over it.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way we come full circle all the way back to me as an existential thinker: If ambition is not something we all universally share… What’s the point? What is the one driving factor we all have in common?
I believe it’s happiness. The one thing that we all seek is happiness. It’s the ultimate accomplishment. It’s what we all want (or should want).

Happiness doesn’t just manifest as a product of ambition. It isn’t a side effect of making lots of money. Happiness comes from what makes you feel fulfilled.
It can come from building a family or running marathons or cooking breakfast every morning. It comes from whatever gives you a sense of fulfillment.
In thinking and writing that through this morning I asked myself what makes me happy and came up with this list:
- My family makes me happy
- Writing makes me happy
- Waking up at 6:00 AM every day makes me happy
- Feeding my ambition monster with work and school makes me happy
So here I am, in my home office, doing something that makes me happy. I am writing/working on a holiday weekend because it makes me happy.
Whoever you are, wherever you’re reading this, I hope you’re doing stuff that makes you happy too.
— KP
