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Ambitious but at peace

jugheadjones10.github.io

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Re: Ambitious but at peace

#21

Post by groundcontr01 »

b3kart wrote: post #16

> Ambition is about the magnitude of your end goals, not about your mental state on the way there. The problem is that once you tie your self-image to your end goals, no matter the magnitude, how can your mental state _not_ suffer if you're not achieving them? If I want to be a millionaire by 30, and I am still working a low-paying job at 29, I either concede that my goal is unattainable, or I suffer. Fundamentally,…

I don't know if they're totally at odds if you separate your ambition from your identity and sense of self-worth. I live in a fairly constant state of discontentment (maybe as a symptom of ambition), but when I step back and self-evaluate I rest easy.

A steady state of always feeling peace in the background seems pretty impossible though under any circumstances.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#22

Post by sdwr »

AIorNot wrote: post #20

Like so many pontificating without life experience, this seems a little shallow, please repost once you’ve had a little more experience, kid.

I'm only 30, but this exact same realization has brought me a great deal of mental peace in the last few years.

Separating the doing from the feeling (and especially the feeling-about-doing from the doing) makes weathering setbacks much easier.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#23

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

safety1st wrote: post #18
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably had more energy in my 40s than I did in my 20s. And in my 50s, I had more time too (kids were grown and gone). In my 60s, yeah, energy down significantly, and time moves so fast .

Please elaborate on this idea of time moving so fast in your 60s. It is terrifying to me. I'm in my early 40s and I already feel like it is slipping away from me so quickly. I want to achieve my ambitions and I also want to enjoy life, and despite being at the peak of my competency, it just feels like there's never enough time for both.

If I "blinked" when I was 40 (in the sense of not paying much attention to what was happening over what felt like a not particularly long period of time), maybe a week would go by.

Now, it's months. Or maybe it's an effect closer to memory "time compression". When I was 40, 6 months of memories was quite a distinct cluster of different things. Now, 6 months of memories is closer to one memory. It's not precisely like that, and certainly not all the time, but that's a handwaving general description of how I perceive things these days.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#24

Post by nathan_compton »

_se wrote: post #11
RACEWAR wrote: post #5

> Real strength comes from knowing that there is absolutely nothing that can happen to you that will stop you from continuing forward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths

Dead people aren't usually concerned with whether they're progressing or not.

I don't think that's the point. Death is just a dead-obvious example of the fundamental reality that our actions are constrained. Like I guess I could grudgingly admit that maybe hustle culture's absolutely absurd levels of optimism or self belief might somehow help a person overcome obstacles, but I can't help but feel that a person who thinks this way just fundamentally doesn't understand how the universe works.

We're all just one head injury from being unable to most of the things we want. Too much kinetic energy and we die or become permanently maimed. This is an unpleasant thing to consider, but I have trouble accepting that its better to delude oneself.

In my experience people who have the "I can do anything!" attitude tend to step on everyone else's toes and take up space from people with better ideas but a more realistic self appraisal. The whole "go big or go home" attitude typical of some parts of startup culture takes up a lot of resources from great ideas that are more realistic.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#25

Post by worldsayshi »

delichon wrote: post #17

This attempts to disassociate fuel from acceleration. Your dissatisfaction is the fuel. You can't dump fuel and maintain the same potential energy. If you manage that it would be the motivational equivalent of a reactionless drive. As is, our propulsion is found in our discontent. Most of us can burn it a lot more efficiently though.

I think "it would be cool if ..." is a better long term motivator than "it sucks that ...".

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#26

Post by ShakMR »

reportgunner wrote: post #8
OmarShehata wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you add more detail here? What is your prediction? That they will (1) change their mind and not be at peace, because this feeling doesn't last or (2) they will not accomplish much because ambition is not compatible with being satisfied? (this is my wild guess based on the tone of your post, just trying to understand it)

My 5 cents is that sometimes you can reach your ambitions and it might be hard for you to get new ambitions, no matter how you feel about yourself. It can also happen that you end up with wrong ambitions and only find out once you reach those ambitions.

define wrong ambitions.

I get from the text that you can have peace of mind and progress towards your goal. That peace of mind allows you to progress easily, less troubled. It doesn't say your ambitions are invariable once you choose them.

The fact you realize your original ambition is not what you want anymore you still got all the learnings from the path.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#27

Post by b3kart »

juggy69 wrote: post #19
b3kart wrote: post #16

> Ambition is about the magnitude of your end goals, not about your mental state on the way there. The problem is that once you tie your self-image to your end goals, no matter the magnitude, how can your mental state _not_ suffer if you're not achieving them? If I want to be a millionaire by 30, and I am still working a low-paying job at 29, I either concede that my goal is unattainable, or I suffer. Fundamentally,…

You're right, and that's one of my internal conflicts. I think there still is a way to have "internal peace" while still believing the world isn't good enough. You're at peace because you're doing the best you can to fix or improve things. Part of that peace comes from focussing on the journey and not the outcome.

I agree focusing on the journey is more healthy (many cognitive therapies focus on trying to re-frame your thinking like this), but realistically all of our social/rewards structures are focused on the outcome, hence it's so difficult to detach from it.

If we could detach from the negative connotation of being "non-ambitious", we could reason like this: am I less likely to become a millionaire if I don't obsess over it? Yes. Will I be OK even if I don't become one? Yes. So I'll give it my best shot, but I won't sacrifice the rest of my life for something that might not happen even if I did obsess over it.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#28

Post by mattgreenrocks »

AIorNot wrote: post #20

Like so many pontificating without life experience, this seems a little shallow, please repost once you’ve had a little more experience, kid.

Feels like a cheap shot, even if the author is in their twenties.

They're not saying their experience is universal, just what helped them. This is the type of question that is not solved quickly, it is probably something that takes a decade or more to really crack.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#29

Post by JohnMakin »

This feels a bit off. Change/Progress doesn’t tend to happen for most people until the status quo is more painful than the effort it takes to change or make progress. Just human nature. If you’re happy where you are, you’re not likely to change your situation on purpose.

Re: Ambitious but at peace

#30

Post by b3kart »

groundcontr01 wrote: post #21
b3kart wrote: post #16

> Ambition is about the magnitude of your end goals, not about your mental state on the way there. The problem is that once you tie your self-image to your end goals, no matter the magnitude, how can your mental state _not_ suffer if you're not achieving them? If I want to be a millionaire by 30, and I am still working a low-paying job at 29, I either concede that my goal is unattainable, or I suffer. Fundamentally,…

I don't know if they're totally at odds if you separate your ambition from your identity and sense of self-worth. I live in a fairly constant state of discontentment (maybe as a symptom of ambition), but when I step back and self-evaluate I rest easy. A steady state of always feeling peace in the background seems pretty impossible though under any circumstances.

> if you separate your ambition from your identity and sense of self-worth

If you can do this and stay ambitious, I'd like to buy your course. I don't know if generally people can stay hyper-motivated and hyper-ambitious unless it's tied to their identity and self-worth. If you're content with the way you are or the world is -- why bother?

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