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Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

ambition-book.com

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#11
post #8

Looks like a very interesting book, particularly for those of us who are struggling with the fact that we'll never be the success we once thought we would. Thanks! For everyone else, check out the prologue; it's short and a good read.

Wow, my heart sank when I read this comment.

The frustrating reality of life...

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#13
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow 224 page PDF insta-loaded into my phone, thanks OP :) Looks like an online re-edition of a book by the same name, last printed in 2000, author Gilbert Brim. Without poring through an entire book, what's the reason this was submitted, OP? Presumably you feel it has merit, can you briefly say why?

hi austin, OP here (new acct because i noprocast'd myself but wanted to respond). this book was written by my grandfather, with his macarthur genius grant, over 20 years ago. he gave copies of it to our whole family for christmas (he had done this once before, 20 years ago, but we were too young for it then). i have dual motivations here -- i want to share the book with the world, and i also want my grandfather, whos…

Thank you for taking the time to bring something worthwhile to a new generation's attention and helping extend the imprint your family leaves on the world.

I don't think there's enough of that in general in this world and it's nice to see someone care enough to do so. I hope someday I have grandchildren that are as caring and considerate.

I'll be sure to check out the book when I get the chance. I hope it reaches many new readers and they can all find something useful for their lives in it.

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#14
post #8

Looks like a very interesting book, particularly for those of us who are struggling with the fact that we'll never be the success we once thought we would. Thanks! For everyone else, check out the prologue; it's short and a good read.

Wow, my heart sank when I read this comment. The frustrating reality of life...

Define success. It's impossible for everyone to be way above average. Is it so bad to be a jack of all trades? A good husband, good father and good community member, instead of world domination of some e-commerce area that would have happened anyway?

I'm not saying give up, I'm just saying if we were all Steve Jobs (not to pick on him I've no idea if he was/was not a "good" person) it would be a mad world.

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#15
post #6

It looks like this is a web page that then loads a PDF from https://ambition.gratis/ambition.pdf -- to what end I'm not sure, though it did screw with my trying to directly save it into a "read offline later" folder.

> into a "read offline later" folder. I have a "pretend you will read offline later but never actually read" folder.

I need to create a cron job to bzip stuff in mine. I need a dropbox for the after life.

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#16
Success is as dangerous as failure.

Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?

Whether you go up the ladder or down it,

Your position is shaky.

When you stand with your own two feet on the ground,

You will always keep your balance.

-Lao Tzu

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#17
> When we win, we try for more; when we fail, we cut back.

Thanks for sharing this book, OP. I've personally seen this range of ambition in my own life. I can very much relate to this. When I was younger I was always seeking more out of life. Now becoming an adult and struggling as sole-provider of my family and spending many years attending university while trying to help my wife through severe depression and my special-needs child I am now careful about finding new commitments and I'm trying to greatly simplify my life.

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#18

> When we win, we try for more; when we fail, we cut back. Thanks for sharing this book, OP. I've personally seen this range of ambition in my own life. I can very much relate to this. When I was younger I was always seeking more out of life. Now becoming an adult and struggling as sole-provider of my family and spending many years attending university while trying to help my wife through severe depression and my spe…

It's an honorable thing you are doing helping your wife out with severe depression. I myself suffer from anxiety disorder and depression and it is difficult to make others understand my plight. The requirements for taking care of a special-needs child are equally challenging I'm sure.

Re: Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992)

#19

> When we win, we try for more; when we fail, we cut back. Thanks for sharing this book, OP. I've personally seen this range of ambition in my own life. I can very much relate to this. When I was younger I was always seeking more out of life. Now becoming an adult and struggling as sole-provider of my family and spending many years attending university while trying to help my wife through severe depression and my spe…

It's an honorable thing you are doing helping your wife out with severe depression. I myself suffer from anxiety disorder and depression and it is difficult to make others understand my plight. The requirements for taking care of a special-needs child are equally challenging I'm sure.

Thanks, I hope you are able to find people who are more understanding. My personal opinion is that people who haven't experienced depression, abuse, or poverty can't understand it. This might just be based on my own experience since I was raised in a family who judges and minimizes those things and I doubt they'll ever change.
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