[b3kart]

> 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 think internal peace and ambition are at odds. The worlds is either good enough as it is (then why kill yourself over achieving your goals?), or it isn't = mental suffering. This is why I think extreme ambition can only come from/with unhappiness, which sucks for the individual, but seems to work well for the species.

[juggy69]

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.

[b3kart]

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.

[groundcontr01]

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.

[b3kart]

> 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?

[dotnet00]

I disagree that the two are fundamentally at odds. If your goal is specifically to be a millionaire by 30, yeah, you're bound to be unhappy if you aren't near that by 29. But on the other hand, if you're more open minded about the flexibility of your goals, it can be a lot less painful. You just need the self-confidence that even if things don't go as expected, you're capable of finding another way or of changing the goal to something else that you find to give you similar or greater value.

I am a very harshly self-critical person in all my pursuits. Ordinarily it'd probably be pretty unhealthy, but I've always had a confidence in regards to technical pursuits (learning a new skill etc) that I could eventually figure them out, which has allowed me to reframe harsher criticism into stronger motivation. I didn't have this confidence regarding other things, which used to cause me a lot of stress and fears about being a 'failure'. Lately I've been building up this confidence for those things too, reframing being a 'failure' from someone who hasn't been able to achieve their core goals to someone who has given up on trying to achieve or change their core goals.

[ragnardan]

The buddhists would say that expectation and attachment are the root of suffering, and to completely let go of them is the only way to transcend the pain of being.

I don't know if I'd go that far, more like the middle way or Aristotelian golden mean.

I think to an extent there is some inevitable pain in wanting for something that is not yet there, but that doesn't have to be the primary emotion. It's like in relationships or flirting, if there's no friction at all, it's not compelling, it's boring.

But the underlying thing that makes these relationships worth it, just like pursuing your aspirations, is less about the outcome and more about the process of growing and learning. Or optimally, it should be. Paradoxically, a focus on the process and engaging with it sustainably will oftentimes get you closer to the end goal than excessive goal focus and beating yourself up for the whole time you have not yet reached your goal.

The tragic part of aspiration is that often those that are ambitious are also incredibly critical thinkers, and are thus not as able or willing to count the small wins and gradual progress that comes from a sustainable approach.

We also have a tendency to move goalposts, so that by the time we achieve an original goal, we already have the next ones lined up. So the feeling ends up being inadequacy and disappointment.

"Why am I never meeting all of my goals? There must be something wrong with me..."

"There's always something left to try to crack at the end of the day, and until I figure it out I can't let myself off the hook."

This can lead to burnout, cynicism, and frankly a pretty toxic social life.

It's been a process to be in the paradoxical state of constantly wanting to improve and realizing the human constraints I have aren't typically existential flaws, they're just parts of the experience.

Pausing to assess my progress, optimally with objective data, to be able to come to a conclusion and adjust if needed allows me to "give it a rest" with the constant cross examination of self.

Over time, it becomes less constant. Over time, I've learned to appreciate my progress.

One of the big things recently is learning to appreciate myself for WHO I am rather than what I can do to "create value".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdjqZGzMGtE