What's Your Toxic Ambition?
Plus perimenopause, pleasure and Clothes Concierge.
Friday Thread: And When Has Ambition Saved You?
I’ve been thinking a lot about ambition since last week’s conversation with
, who also just wrote this fantastic essay for The Cut on ambition, divorce, and Jennifer Lopez. Jenn and I spent a lot of that episode processing our collective women’s magazine trauma and how we both craved that particular flavor of success and ran from it. My life now looks so very different from what I envisioned for myself as a 22-year-old in kitten heels with Editor-In-Chief dreams. And a lot of that is because I’ve done a lot of work on my relationship with work and ambition. Which are not exactly the same thing—we’ll get to that—but in a capitalist society, sure feel that way.It’s still hard for me to prioritize rest and leisure. As a mom, writer, and person who, as it turns out, does run a (very small) media company, my to-do list can feel perpetually endless. Also, I’m an oldest daughter and a former A student. I grew up in a family where working nights and weekends was normalized. And my early years in work-all-hours toxic magazine jobs were followed by a lot of never-stop-hustling freelancer years. Taking a Friday morning to go plant shopping, like I now sometimes do, will probably never not feel wanton!
But I’m getting better at this. I haven’t worked weekends (with the exception of a very few book-edits-are-due-Monday moments) in over a decade. I only work nights for speaking events. In fact, most days I don’t work much past the school bus’s arrival at 3pm. I can’t pull that off every day, and I often use the days my kids aren’t with me to play catch up (see me editing this piece at 7:30pm Thursday night) and then feel out of balance again. But the possibility for work to no longer be my whole personality is there now. There is a lot of privilege underpinning that schedule, of course. But I know a lot of very privileged people who work constantly. (Jennifer Lopez for sure has more money than me, and as Jenn notes in her piece, Mrs. Affleck works more than all of us combined.) So there have also been some fairly deliberate choices about roads not taken.
And yet—I firmly believe that ambition is not in and of itself a moral failing. Especially for women and other marginalized folks. As Jenn writes in The Cut:
Ambition is not “bad” or “good.” Ambition is little more than an internal force, an inner compass that drives us to set goals and decisions, a map for the life we think we want. […] And while the larger “Is ambition feminist or not” debate rages, the conversation we may actually need to be having is smaller and more individual: What are we actually ambitious for? In many cases, it seems like the wrong things, a one-size-fits-all vision of a successful life.
Letting go of my EIC ambitions was a first step towards realizing I wanted a different relationship with work, but that I could still work towards things that matter to me — writing books, making this newsletter, dreaming up new creative collaborations and projects. These other kinds of ambition have very often, been a compass, a map, and a force for good in my life. My ambitions have helped me understand who I am, and what I want to fight for. They help me see the value of my work and my time, which can actually help me say no more often, to projects and commitments that don’t appreciate that value. Having clarity on my ambition lets me cut through the noise of a culture that tells us to take up less space in all the ways.
But that only started to happen once I got some clarity on which kinds of ambitions serve me, and which just keep me small.
OK, now it’s your turn: How do you think about ambition?
Do you think it’s a concept that serves you—or not? Has there been an ambition you were proudest to achieve? Or an ambition it felt important (even a relief!) to let go of? And how do you suss out when an ambition will help or hurt you?
Feel free to consider these questions in the realm of work or push beyond that into any other arena of life. Marriage ambition and parenting ambitions are definitely also part of, or adjacent-to, this conversation.
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Friday Links & Recs
Dazed, confused and drenched in sweat: Perimenopause is a RIDE.
Added so many titles to my TBR pile after this episode of Culture Study, which also has the smartest analysis of why the romance genre matters, by Nisha Sharma. AND THEY UNPACK ALL THE TROPES.
The very best peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
This is the conversation our foremothers could only dream about, between
and . Glynnis’s new book I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is out now and if you like carbs and/or sex and/or France you need to read it (I feel confident that list covers the entire readership of this newsletter!).Have been thinking A LOT about how to get kids to help out more, especially now we are a one-adult household, and this was helpful (ha!) read.
Loved reading about
’s Aunt Marilyn and her bonkers house, and quite frankly am here for all content about women living alone in amazing houses?I realized the other day that even though I’ve been lifting weights for quite awhile now, I still struggle to carry a stainless steel saucepan full of pasta from the stove to the table because mine has a very long handle and it just makes the weight distribution impossible. That’s not my failing, it’s a kitchen gear design failing. So reading this by
(and friends) on making cooking physically accessible was so helpful! just launched a writing fellowship program! Absolutely love this.ICYMI on Big Undies…
Corinne describes
’s style as “a cool mix of poofy dresses and androgynous separates” and I could not love it more.And it’s time for Clothes Concierge! You already know
gives genius recs, but now the whole Big Undies community as at your disposal if you’re searching for a specific clothing need.
Recovering perfectionist/people pleaser here. I think what I’ve sussed out for myself is this:
Do I want to do this thing because it’s what *I* want to do, and deep down in my body it feels good and right for me?
Or
Am I doing this because of how I want to be perceived by others/as a hustle for my worth?
I’m very new at this whole “what do *I* want out of my life” thing and it has required lots of therapy and meditation, but it has also WORKED! Ambition doesn’t feel like the right word to me when it’s coming from the deep down place. The goals that come from there might take hard work but they do NOT require me to convince myself that it’s what I want.
Ambition is merely a tool that helps us to achieve greater goals. It is only "good" in so far as our goals are worthy, and goals can be righteous, neutral, or downright evil. Some of the most ignominious people in history were great achievers, after all.
My [non-]"toxic ambition" is to earn enough money to purchase a house with a view by the time I retire. That feels like a neutral goal to me. But I would like to earn that money by writing novels that empower my generation and the next. And that feels like a 'good' goal to throw my ambition behind.