When it comes to ambition, what are you striving for, exactly?
The concept of ambition has always been difficult for me to parse. I’ve never really been certain how to apply it to myself. “People pleaser,” sure. “Generally eager to impress,” of course. I derive satisfaction from executing work well. Largely, though, my drive to work is motivated by my desire to live. A paycheck allows me to pick up the check at brunch, or buy a gift for a friend who is having a hard time. My dream has never been to keep hopping up the corporate ladder. I want to show up, do a good job, and go home.
Still, all the things I’d heard ad nauseam in school — the importance of getting good grades because that means going to college and going to college means a “good job” and stability sunk in. Even if I didn’t (and still don’t?) know exactly what the right job for me is. It was still a path I could cling to. Maybe all I was missing was a definition of ambition that made sense to me.
Enter Rainesford Stauffer’s “All The Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive.” For Stauffer, ambition means more than just a drive to do well. “I lit up not at accomplishments or accolades,” she writes of herself, “but at the acknowledgment that came with them: Such a hard worker. Always going above and beyond.” Ding Ding! Right there, in black and white. Like Stauffer, I don’t derive much personal joy from actually doing things; the simple acknowledgment that I have done something correctly is what my soul craves. (Yes, I have a therapist; we’re working on it.)
Much like Stauffer’s first book (“An Ordinary Age”), “All The Gold Stars” isn’t filled with prescriptive action items. Instead, the author and journalist talks to people of all ages and backgrounds about how their ambition has helped or hindered their perspective, as well as researchers and scientists about the larger concept of ambition and its effects on American culture today. It won’t surprise you to learn that much of our endless hustle and ambition culture is rooted in America’s history of capitalism, and compounded by the challenges and privileges that white supremacy lends to some and denies others.
As I read, I was struck by the number of people who had spent so long striving, and still weren’t sure what they were striving for. For some, it was the expectation of kids and marriage — two cultural milestones of “making it” that have only become more and more expensive, and sometimes unattainable. For others, the drive to succeed came from immigrant parents who sacrificed so much to bring their families to America that their children felt the only way to honor that gift was to make sure they accomplished as much as possible in this land of so-called opportunity. And even for those who could point to a staggering amount of socalled success, an emptiness remained. What becomes of ambition when you’ve done “enough” to prove yourself ? What do hobbies look like to a culture that is incapable of doing anything without thinking of monetizing it?
Stauffer isn’t promising to solve the problems of ambition and overwork and striving, but instead helping her readers think about a world wherein we turn that ambition away from work and instead, think of it “as an engine for prioritizing community, fun, and even friendship.” Ambition makes us too self-reliant, too internally focused to think beyond ourselves. We do everything by ourselves instead of asking for help; we respond to every work-related request with a cheery “no problem” instead of confessing when we are stretched to the limit. Taking a minute to admit to yourself that you are overwhelmed, learning how to say no, these are things ambition doesn’t allow in our culture. Maybe if we take a hint from “All The Gold Stars,” we can start to imagine a future where ambition fits in differently.
“All The Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive,”
Rainesford Stauffer, Hachette Go, $28.