I am not someone that you should come to for advice, unless you know me personally and have seen what my closet looks like and used my towels and have received frantic texts from me during various crises. Advice, I think, should be reserved for the people we know well enough to know the variables that make their lives unique. My friend
— who I can call a friend because I’ve used her bathroom and snuggled her dog — says that she doesn’t offer advice, she offers opinions. That’s what most of us should stick to, probably, and only when we’re asked.And I was asked, by a listener, if something was wrong with them. What could be wrong with them? That they don’t have big ambitions. That they want a nice little life.
Is it bad that I’m content with my simple life? I don’t have ambition but I’m happy.
I do not know many happy people. I mean truly, truly happy people. People who are not grasping for something, clawing for something, pining or lusting or aching for something other than what they have now. These are not people who are struggling to meet their basic needs, these are people who just want more. More money, more recognition, more accomplishments to line up on their shelves or their resumes.
Before you think, hey, that sounds pretty judgmental…yes. And I count myself in this number. I work like I eat: before I’ve even swallowed a bite I’m taking another. I am always hungry. Hardly anything tastes good. I am not, you may have guessed, a great dinner companion.
When asked how she would describe me as a child, my mother chose the word “industrious.” I was a girl who liked a project, a mission, a goal, a reward. I have been an ambitious young woman, a desperate young widow, and a burned out shell. Ambition, for me, was an accelerant for my success and for my unhappiness.
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