Redefining ambition
Ambition is a tricky thing. It is very saddening that I spent most of my life placing ambition on things that I justified as what I was supposed to be ambitious about—I lied to myself repeatedly that I enjoyed something that suffocated me. I was so misguided in my belief that acceptance only came with pursuing a talent or skill in something that I spent most of my early years training for—namely, classical music training.
1994 - 2022
Gaslighting Myself
I will never forget the stern stare from my piano teacher, forbidding me to play basketball because I risked injuring my fingers. And then, Jessica, you will be useless because you will miss the opportunity to place in the next music competition. You will lose your dignity.
I will never forget the terrorizing humiliation from the orchestra conductor for every mismatch his ears registered. No. Do it right. Play those lines in front of everyone else until every note is perfectly in tune, crescendos executed at exactly the right moment, three times in a row.
It is hard to let go of the possibility that these adults expected so much of me because they knew I would strive to not only reach their expectations, but exceed them—and I somehow made excuses every single day that I actually enjoyed this humiliation. I was boosted by the sweet nothings of you’re so talented and what a gifted cellist she is.
I quit all music-related activities the day I thought, I don’t ever want to see these instruments again. When I walk into my childhood home, I deliberately avoid the room that still houses the instruments and red-marked sheet music I spent more time with than with other people.
The adults told me I would regret quitting. You are a child. You do not know how many grown-ups wish they could play like you. How could play feel more like choking, like there is no oxygen in the air I breathed? How could one possibly regret quitting something that felt immobilizing, as if drenched in tar? I questioned my decision. I wore an invisible crown on my head with a neon sign that said, “SHE IS A QUITTER. SHE IS HELPLESS. SHE IS STUPID.”
The cycle would repeat itself in other forms. You are not committed, my manager raised his voice at me. We had hardly spoken for the entire year, and he called me out of the blue after discovering that I was heavily considering offers to work on other projects. He would, of course, need to fill in the space that I was going to leave vacant. The thought inconvenienced him, and his tone was rudely condescending. If I am not committed, I thought, would I be constantly clocking 12 to 15 hours a day, trying to maintain progress amid the chaos? Was I not repeatedly ignored when asking for help, instead being told that I was just so damn good that I could do the work of three people alone? I felt no shame this time, only anger.
I left that position. A repeat of the past haunted me in that space. It was as if I were constantly choking. Like I was stuck in tar, unable to move until a rare hand was extended to help pull me out of the muck.
2023
Pursuing Aliveness
I was breathless at the top the hill and paused to notice my surroundings. The metal shine of the vehicles appeared like a school of fish. Each roof had its own type of wear-and-tear, telling a story of the house from the first day of construction to present. I observed the steadiness of the mountains amid the gusts of wind, thinking of the intensity at which we experience the elements. When I run, time is a vacancy I fill on my own accord.
I arrived home and rested on the couch with tired legs while Hubble comfortably napped, his head on my lap. When he awakened, he was delighted that I was exactly where I was when he began his slumber. He sniffed me from head to toe with an excitement made of absolute purity and innocence, then made his way to the front door. My just-worn running shoes were sitting at the base of the door, and he returned to the couch with a shoe, a gleam in his eye, and a happy wag in his tail. Hubble knows that this shoe isn’t just a shoe to me anymore. He knows he fetched me something special.
Running brings me alive.
Hubble brings me alive.
Solitude brings me alive.
I am focused on living to continually cultivate self-trust and confidence, where I surprise myself with my capabilities, and where I am victorious in a battle with my tendency towards rumination and despair. Running gave me this aliveness. Running allowed me to shift what felt like an eternal baseline of rumination and despair to a new world of courage and renewal. Running allowed me to reassure my teenage self that she does not need to live her life as a lie.
Running continues teaching me that pain is not necessarily painful if the process was ignited within myself, if the process allows me to discover something new even in a familiar environment—perhaps a new sensation in the chill of the impending winter air, the change in grass color with the shift in temperature, the freshness the street signs after a short episode of rain.
Pain is painful in the hopelessness of pursuing ambitions defined by others.
Ambitions must be so tailored to oneself, so visceral and personal, that they are the pursued because they bring the greatest aliveness. Unsolicited advice is, perhaps, the biggest violation in the pursuit of one’s ambitions. One person’s ambition will never match another’s. The attempt to match them reflects our fear of that which is different and unknown, and the attempt to create conformity only leads to disparity and tension. Imagine how much closeness, joy, and respect we could cultivate in our relationships if we sought to understand each other’s unique ways of experiencing aliveness in a world that increasingly prefers sameness. How very boring it would be if everyone’s tastes were similar, if everyone had the same ambitions. Unsolicited advice thwarts ambition for the sake of conformity and false security; instead of launching you-shoulds on someone else, why not encourage the pursuit of aliveness, of self-discovery instead?
"Ambitions must be so tailored to oneself, so visceral and personal, that they are the pursued because they bring the greatest aliveness."
All. The. Yes.