The Path of Ambition

Photo by Paula May on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, my mom sent me a video of my 18-month-old nephew that struck a weird chord in me. Mom keeps him while my sister and her husband work, so it’s not uncommon for me to get surprised with adorable pictures and videos throughout the day, but something about this particular video gave me pause. One look would tell you he was just playing– moving rocks back and forth, doing baby things that babies do. A closer look, however, would reveal that he was hard at work, seemingly knowing exactly what he was doing. Which was essentially nothing… but don’t tell him that.

One of my favorite things about my nephew and children in general is that I get to observe the way they navigate the world and compare it to the way I attempt to navigate my own. Sometimes it’s vastly different, given my (mostly?) fully formed brain, mastery of language, and general life experience. Other times, it’s strangely similar. And some other times still, it’s not similar at all but I wish it were.

I watched my nephew hustling, running around in circles, and I saw myself. His passion and focus were inspiring, but what was he actually accomplishing? My nephew is a baby, so his imaginary, nonsensical playtime is perfectly normal, but it made me examine my own life and begin to wonder, in what ways am I nonsensically striving? How often does it appear that I’m hard at work, when in reality, I don’t even know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it? And what good is Ambition without direction?

I’ve long considered myself to be a girl who knows what she wants. I got my brown eyes from my mama and my curly hair from my daddy, but I inherited a whopping serving of Ambition from both sides. Ambition is good, but its not-so-distant cousins, Competitiveness and Perfectionism, have a tendency to show up when that girl who thought she knew what she wanted forgets what she wants… which happens more often than she’d like.

I am not the originator of the word and therefore its definition is probably not up to me, but I’ve decided that Ambition requires direction or else it’s not Ambition. Ambition is about who you are, what you [uniquely] can do for the world, and where you will go to do it. On the other hand, Competitiveness and Perfectionism are about who you think you’re supposed to be, regardless of what you’re doing or where you’re going. If Ambition is a well-laid path, Competitiveness and Perfectionism are, at best, stumbling blocks, and at worst, malfunctioning GPS systems that lead you nowhere, or perhaps to a place you don’t even want to be.

Occasionally, as I’m strutting down my path of Ambition, I catch a glimpse of something I could do. Or I stumble upon an opportunity that somewhat interests me. And for some reason, my ego lights up at a chance to prove herself, even if it means delaying or straying from my truest and most honorable desires.

Ambition doesn’t latch on to every nearby opportunity. Ambition doesn’t have to climb every corporate ladder. Ambition doesn’t need to be in charge to be effective. Ambition requires direction. Even if you’re not totally sure where it will take you. Ambition requires context– it is attached to a meaningful pursuit.

Mistaking Competitiveness and Perfectionism as Ambition makes for a life of unfulfilling accomplishment. It is why many successful people are still not satisfied. Achieving via means of Competitiveness or Perfectionism may equal success, but achieving via means of Ambition equals joy.

This shift in thinking has helped me to distinguish between the energy I exert on fruitless pursuits of the ego and the energy I put toward my long-term goals. It’s helped me to consider the bigger picture when I find myself leading just to lead, or achieving just to achieve. It’s helped me to recognize Competitiveness and Perfectionism for what they really are: fear.

Ambition is a virtue. It’s an honor to have. And it’s a big, fat finger in the face of fear. So when you find a moment to take a break from your hustle, consider where you are on your own path of Ambition– if you’ve taken a detour, or gotten caught at a stumbling block. Perhaps you’re navigating it well, or chilling at a rest stop, or maybe you haven’t even left the house yet (even though you just told your friend you were on the way). In any case, thanks for hanging as I work through these ideas. I’m excited to be writing again as I’m hopping back on my path after a prolonged stint at a rest stop. I hope you find my introspection to be thoughtful, helpful, or at the very least, charming.

Small Town, USA: I Owe You An Apology

I never felt comfortable in my home town. It never quite felt like home. My skin would crawl when I had been there too long, and my heart seemed to ache for all the places I had never been… but never for home.

As a teenager, I was terrified of getting trapped in my small town. I thought small towns were for people with small dreams, small talent, and small wallets. I made sure that no one and nothing could tie me to the quiet mountains I was taking for granted.

I think I subconsciously maintained that attitude for years, but as visiting there becomes more of a rarity, my reasoning for getting out has changed. I realize now that Small Town, USA can’t provide the occupational opportunities that I’m both skilled at and passionate about. In fact, there are days that I wish it could, and I’m beginning to understand that there is nothing wrong with that place, and there’s nothing wrong with the people that live there.

I went to church with my mom this weekend. When I got there, my eyes immediately found the back of the head of the only boy who’s pull on my heart has ever been strong enough for me to even day-dream about a future together. My heart stopped beating in a way that was unexpected and completely new to me. I was knocked breathless, and in my search for oxygen, all I could see were these twenty-something married couples who were praising Jesus like they really believed in him and smiling like it had never occurred to them that they were settling… because they weren’t. I was astounded because I was jealous. I was angry at myself for my own choices, but also for my own judgement of these people.

The pastor began preaching on “how we can know the Bible is reliable.” As soon as I heard the subject, I kind of tuned out. Anyone that knows me knows I consider myself to be a spiritual person in relationship with Jesus, but I don’t find apologetics to be useful in matters of faith, because there is simply no way of convincing anyone that the giant book that contradicts itself in a few places and contradicts science in a bunch of other places (depending on your interpretation) is “reliable.” Not to mention the fact that Old Testament God and New Testament God seem like completely different beings. I’m not here to slam Christians and the Bible in general, but what I’m saying is, I have questions. I have doubts. And I’m sure the citizens of my home town do, too, but I’ve chosen a life in which I have to answer those tough questions because people are asking. I’ve chosen a career in which I have to justify my beliefs, because people are skeptical. I know it’s not easy anywhere in this world, and I guess I have a grass-is-greener mentality to a degree. I don’t have the privilege of, for the most part, being surrounded by like-minded people. I am more often surrounded by people who make me doubt than I am people who encourage my faith. And that doesn’t make me better or stronger, but it’s something I rarely dealt with at home. It’s different. Here I am, jealous again, because I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’d have more peace if I had stayed.

I wasn’t even to the car before the tears were dripping off my chin. I had left before I had the chance to attack that curly-headed boy with a marriage proposal. I think it would have gone something like this:

Hey, I know I exploded on you for treating me badly a few months ago, but I’ve been thinking, and I’d like to quit everything I’ve been working for my entire life and get married instead. To you. And you can work. And I can blog and take care of my dog– our dog. What’s mine is yours. Whaddya say? 

Because what if picking a mate for life isn’t settling so much as it is having someone promise to stick with you through the shit that is imminent?

What if staying in your small town isn’t settling so much as it embracing a peace that only comes from being surrounded by your tribe?

I’m not saying I’m gonna drop everything to go back home and give up on what I feel is my purpose. I rode that emotion out, and I still landed in 30308. I’m just saying that the people at home have a purpose, too, and maybe their path to fulfilling it has a different terrain than mine– with its unique advantages and disadvantages. It might be quiet and less crowded, but there’s an incline I don’t have to deal with while I wait behind a billion other cars whose drivers are flipping me off. That path leads to somewhere. God, forgive me for ever thinking it didn’t. Help me to trust that I’m on the right path, and please, let that path take a detour to the mountains every once in a while.

When You Stop Believing In God

I cried a lot on Thursday. I cried in my therapy session, I cried on the bus, I cried in the Target parking lot, I cried in the car on the way to work, and then I got in a big hurry and I forgot to cry the rest of the evening. I think I met my tear quota and I should be good for the rest of the year. We won’t blame these tears on the crazy things happening in my uterus at the time. These tears are much too important to be dismissed as lady business, but I’m pretty positive that the hateful river of blood pouring out of me didn’t help the situation. I was having the most serious identity crisis I had ever had. It was as if each drop of everything I had ever believed was forming puddles in the corners of my eyes and falling to the ground. Well, not the ground. That’s absurd. My boobs would never let that happen. Falling on my chest, then, and weighing heavy on my heart.

The past few weeks have been some of the most exciting and strangely challenging of my life. I think I say that every few weeks, and though it’s exhausting, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I never want to stop changing and evolving and growing. I never want to be too comfortable. And God, my wish was granted this week.

I’m someone with mommy issues. You’d think with a dead daddy, I’d have daddy issues. And I do, but they pale in comparison to my mommy issues. I mean, how do you really have issues with someone you don’t know? The issue with my mother is that she is my everything. My dependence on my mother has gone far beyond the natural, physical dependence that a child has on his or her mother– it’s been a deeply emotional dependence that most people grow out of after, oh, I don’t know, infancy. I was, at one time, so very emotionally dependent on my mother that I couldn’t function without her constant attention and communication. I begged and prayed for God to make me a normal young adult that was independent in an emotionally healthy way, and I believed that after some time, he had answered those prayers… Until my best friend in the world fell off the face of the Earth for two weeks. Although this was something I had never experienced before, I recognized a very familiar feeling, and it seemed to me as though my prayers hadn’t really been answered, but that I had just shifted from dependence on my mother to dependence on my best friend because of proximity. Key words being “it seemed to me as though my prayers hadn’t really been answered.” That phrase was planted in my mind, and after a couple busy weeks of treating God like an old high school friend that I swear I’m gonna text before the end of the week, the phrase had grown into a belief.

When it comes to old high school friends, I have a tendency to contact them only when I’m reminded of some magical teenage experience we shared. There are some that are more prevalent on my heart, but the vast majority of people I used to spend time with are really only worth talking to when something random makes me remember how happy they used to make me. I was treating God like an old high school friend, and as if that’s not problematic enough, every time I remembered how happy he used to make me, all the mountains he had moved for me, every blessing he’d poured out, that phrase kept crashing into my memories like the Kool-aid dude, but instead of saying “OH YEAH,” he’d say “maybe your prayers were never really answered.” Can you imagine how awkward that commercial would be? Maybe I had just shifted an issue, an idol to another place. I kept finding evidence that supported this idea, and what that meant was that everything I had ever believed had been a lie. Issue after issue, idol after idol, I kept tripping over things that I thought were behind me, tripping over chains I thought I was free from.

When I confessed it out loud, when I admitted that maybe I didn’t believe in God anymore, I immediately felt five billion times worse. I can’t even begin to describe the utter emotional and physical sickness that almost incapacitated me. I expected to feel relief. I expected to be at peace, embracing who I was, but what I realized was that I couldn’t embrace that person as myself because that wasn’t me. Because God is me in and I am in him.

“Why can’t you find meaning and purpose in your life apart from this… thing? Why can’t you find meaning and purpose in your relationships or your art or the things that you learn?” My best friend was trying to help. At the time, I had no words. I had no idea. I had nothing to say, but I knew that I couldn’t. “Why can’t you find it in your relationship with me?” Still nothing. Relationships and art and learning are my favorite things. Why couldn’t I just find meaning in that apart from God without feeling sick? I can’t find my purpose in that because it’s not enough. So many people will let that be enough for them, but it’s not enough for me. Because people, even the ones I love the most and who love me the most, are selfish. They disappear for weeks or they marry men that hate you, and I’m even more selfish than that. And art? It’s subjective. It’s a labor of love, but I will never be pleased with my own. And the things that I learn change every day. Things I was once sure of are things that I can no longer believe, and I’ve never had such a hard time parting with something I once swore to be true. I know what it feels like to find meaning and purpose in life. I know what’s enough. Why would I walk away from that?

After some time to think, I had a much more thoughtful (I mean seriously, my brain was not so tired that I couldn’t form thoughts) conversation with another friend, younger than I but wise beyond her years. After some of her words of wisdom and understanding I said “I just hope that I can come out on the other side of this and be better for it.” I’m still praying for that. I’ve made it through the worst, but I know it’s not over, and that’s okay. I think one of the most paralyzing feelings I recognized as I considered breaking up with the creator of the universe was comfort. Not peace, not rest, but comfort, which is something I run from. My biggest fears include, but are not limited to, bumblebees, pickles, wobbly sewer cover things on sidewalks, and settling. One of my favorite things about life with God was an inexplicable peace, but a constant discomfort– a desire to never stop growing and changing and being better. And it wasn’t because I thought I would earn God’s favor by being better, and it wasn’t because I hated myself and wanted to change. It was because I was excited to become a little bit more like Jesus every day, and I never stopped searching myself for pieces I could tweak to look more like him. When I started to walk away from God, I felt comfortable, but restless. There was no peace, but I seemed to be okay with that. It was terrifying.

“What are you so afraid of? Going to hell?” my best friend asked. No. I’m not afraid of going to hell. I’m afraid of waking up without Jesus because God didn’t send Jesus so that we could get heaven. God sent us Jesus for this very second. We could’ve kept offering burnt sacrifices. It would have been hard, nearly impossible maybe, but we could have still gotten heaven. I’m afraid of waking up in the morning without Jesus because he is LIFE.