I have spent my entire life striving for the next thing.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a hard worker. I’m rarely satisfied with the status quo. And I’m a *wee* bit of a control freak/ perfectionist/ organizational monster (please see previous posts about college nickname “The Binder Bitch.”) I have a really hard time slowing down.
In my life, I have always equated ambition with significant career or educational attainment. This ambition (which I have often used interchangeably with the word motivation) has rarely been solely about personal gain. But rather I have always felt that I must get more knowledge; more credentials, so that I could get a more prestigious job, so that people would take me seriously and so that I could then do good work helping others and say confidently that my life had been worth something: that I will have made a difference.
Work hard so you can make a difference. That’s it. And in my life, I’ve done whatever it was that I had to do to get the necessary capital to make that happen.
An undergrad, a master’s, a PhD; teaching, professorships, administrating. That’s been my whole life. Thirty-two straight years of slowly working up the ladder in schools-- from student, to faculty, to administration; doing whatever it took to reach that next level, justifying each sacrifice of time in the trenches to being the necessary stepping stone for the grand “what’s next.”
And regardless of my current station, at each turn, I felt compelled to do something more than I did in my last position. Better work. Better title. Better pay. That’s what ambitious hard-working people do, right? They strive to move on to the next measurable milestone. Hell, I’ve even made that the primary pursuit in my vocation—helping students to find their own next better work… title…pay.
Because if you’re not moving on to something bigger and better, you’re stagnating. Or worse yet, you’re moving backwards. That’s what’s been hammered into the heads of all ambitious people of the world ever since the time they decided to start being ambitious. Go big, or go home. Do something or move out of the way so someone else can.
And so this has been my life for as long as I can remember. To a great extent it’s been what has defined me as a person. The always persistent, self-sacrificing, *ambitious* young educator doing anything I could to make a difference in the world no matter what it cost me physically, financially, or emotionally.
It’s weird on that day when you wake up and you realize that the constant, dogged drive to work harder and harder and harder has begun to melt away. And suddenly you wonder why you’re killing yourself to get to the “what’s next.”
My little girl turned four months old this week.
Each day, I wake her up impossibly early. I feed her. I change her. I dress her. And thirty minutes later, I bundle her up, give her to her father, and off she goes to daycare for the day. I then spend an hour and 15 minutes in a ridiculous morning commute where I go and push myself hard for the benefit of many other people for 8 hours or 9 hours or 10 hours depending on the day. And then I rush home as fast as I can (and by rush, I mean get in the car and sit in traffic for another hour and 15 minutes) to pick up my daughter from her father’s arms after her day away. I feed her. I change her. I dress her for bed. And then 30 minutes later, I put her in her crib for the night.
I see my four month old for one total hour each day, yet I spend 2 hours and 30 minutes in the car commuting to my job.
This, my friends, is not sustainable. Something’s gotta give. And much to my surprise, I think it’s going to be my ambition.
Now, let’s be clear. I’ll always be me. I’ll always be driven to make a difference. I’ll always be passionate about education. I’ll always not-so-secretly want to change the world one kid at a time. I’m too old to change my stripes. But I think that the one kid whose world I want to change right now, is my own.
But for the first time in my life, I resent the commute. For the first time in my life, I spend as much time at work thinking about home as I do thinking about work. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel guilty about not reading work emails at home. I don’t bring home paperwork over the weekend. Work just isn’t a priority for me right now. And by “right now” I mean for the first time ever in my life.
It is an alien feeling. Because in the past, I would have said that this feeling equals being lazy or giving up a part of what is inherently me. And the guilt that I feel for not putting to use all the capital I’ve worked so hard to attain all these many years is palpable. Shouldn’t I be striving for something more? Can I be an ambitious person and put that part of my life on hiatus without losing it forever? I don’t know the answer to that, and that feels a little scary.
These feelings and this cosmic and quite unexpected personal paradigm shift reminded of a conversation I had with one of my dearest friends several years back. She had just decided that she was going to discontinue her PhD pursuit. She said to me, with all the confidence and resolve in the world, “I’ve decided that I’d like a career and a life. And at some point, this might change, but right now, I think I want the career part of my life to be spelled with a lower-case “C.” Not My Career. But just a career.”
I remember thinking at the time that I admired her sincerity and conviction, but that it felt a little like acquiescence. Someone as gifted, as bright, who had so much to give to the world—why on Earth would SHE choose lower-case C? Weren’t people like that supposed to be the ones out busting their own humps to change the world? I couldn’t imagine a time when I would feel comfortable making that same personal decision.
I was reflecting on this very thought this evening as I was having a conversation with a dear friend who is living with J and I right now. He is an amazing cook. Has gone to culinary school, owns a restaurant, and does all the shopping and cooking for our house right now as he lives with us. As he was preparing yet another amazing meal for our family, he was telling me about his day at work. He mentioned that his new boss asked him what his hobbies were. He listed several things to his boss, none of which were cooking. When I asked him why not cooking, he looked at me and very simply said, “Cooking isn’t a hobby for me. It’s my passion. That’s different.”
Those two conversations rang particularly true for how I’m feeling right now. I can have a career without having a Career. I can have a passion for education without it being something that envelops all aspects of my professional life. I can continue to have a “strong desire to achieve something, requiring determination and hard work.”
It’s just going to look different than it has in the past. That undying yearning for upward mobility is being slowly replaced by an ever-increasing desire for balance. Time for me. Time for my husband. Time for my child. And time at work, in concert with one another instead of working against each other.
And I can still make a difference and change the life of a child—my own. And I can still work hard at achieving something—I can work to find a balance in my work life and personal life and find an appropriate outlet for my passion in education instead of pigeon-holing that passion into a 60 hour a week vocation.
So maybe I’m not losing my ambition, but merely redirecting it. And I think I’m at peace with that for now. Something’s gotta give, and soon. And whatever that looks like; that will be the grand what’s next.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a hard worker. I’m rarely satisfied with the status quo. And I’m a *wee* bit of a control freak/ perfectionist/ organizational monster (please see previous posts about college nickname “The Binder Bitch.”) I have a really hard time slowing down.
In my life, I have always equated ambition with significant career or educational attainment. This ambition (which I have often used interchangeably with the word motivation) has rarely been solely about personal gain. But rather I have always felt that I must get more knowledge; more credentials, so that I could get a more prestigious job, so that people would take me seriously and so that I could then do good work helping others and say confidently that my life had been worth something: that I will have made a difference.
Work hard so you can make a difference. That’s it. And in my life, I’ve done whatever it was that I had to do to get the necessary capital to make that happen.
An undergrad, a master’s, a PhD; teaching, professorships, administrating. That’s been my whole life. Thirty-two straight years of slowly working up the ladder in schools-- from student, to faculty, to administration; doing whatever it took to reach that next level, justifying each sacrifice of time in the trenches to being the necessary stepping stone for the grand “what’s next.”
And regardless of my current station, at each turn, I felt compelled to do something more than I did in my last position. Better work. Better title. Better pay. That’s what ambitious hard-working people do, right? They strive to move on to the next measurable milestone. Hell, I’ve even made that the primary pursuit in my vocation—helping students to find their own next better work… title…pay.
Because if you’re not moving on to something bigger and better, you’re stagnating. Or worse yet, you’re moving backwards. That’s what’s been hammered into the heads of all ambitious people of the world ever since the time they decided to start being ambitious. Go big, or go home. Do something or move out of the way so someone else can.
And so this has been my life for as long as I can remember. To a great extent it’s been what has defined me as a person. The always persistent, self-sacrificing, *ambitious* young educator doing anything I could to make a difference in the world no matter what it cost me physically, financially, or emotionally.
It’s weird on that day when you wake up and you realize that the constant, dogged drive to work harder and harder and harder has begun to melt away. And suddenly you wonder why you’re killing yourself to get to the “what’s next.”
My little girl turned four months old this week.
Each day, I wake her up impossibly early. I feed her. I change her. I dress her. And thirty minutes later, I bundle her up, give her to her father, and off she goes to daycare for the day. I then spend an hour and 15 minutes in a ridiculous morning commute where I go and push myself hard for the benefit of many other people for 8 hours or 9 hours or 10 hours depending on the day. And then I rush home as fast as I can (and by rush, I mean get in the car and sit in traffic for another hour and 15 minutes) to pick up my daughter from her father’s arms after her day away. I feed her. I change her. I dress her for bed. And then 30 minutes later, I put her in her crib for the night.
I see my four month old for one total hour each day, yet I spend 2 hours and 30 minutes in the car commuting to my job.
This, my friends, is not sustainable. Something’s gotta give. And much to my surprise, I think it’s going to be my ambition.
Now, let’s be clear. I’ll always be me. I’ll always be driven to make a difference. I’ll always be passionate about education. I’ll always not-so-secretly want to change the world one kid at a time. I’m too old to change my stripes. But I think that the one kid whose world I want to change right now, is my own.
But for the first time in my life, I resent the commute. For the first time in my life, I spend as much time at work thinking about home as I do thinking about work. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel guilty about not reading work emails at home. I don’t bring home paperwork over the weekend. Work just isn’t a priority for me right now. And by “right now” I mean for the first time ever in my life.
It is an alien feeling. Because in the past, I would have said that this feeling equals being lazy or giving up a part of what is inherently me. And the guilt that I feel for not putting to use all the capital I’ve worked so hard to attain all these many years is palpable. Shouldn’t I be striving for something more? Can I be an ambitious person and put that part of my life on hiatus without losing it forever? I don’t know the answer to that, and that feels a little scary.
These feelings and this cosmic and quite unexpected personal paradigm shift reminded of a conversation I had with one of my dearest friends several years back. She had just decided that she was going to discontinue her PhD pursuit. She said to me, with all the confidence and resolve in the world, “I’ve decided that I’d like a career and a life. And at some point, this might change, but right now, I think I want the career part of my life to be spelled with a lower-case “C.” Not My Career. But just a career.”
I remember thinking at the time that I admired her sincerity and conviction, but that it felt a little like acquiescence. Someone as gifted, as bright, who had so much to give to the world—why on Earth would SHE choose lower-case C? Weren’t people like that supposed to be the ones out busting their own humps to change the world? I couldn’t imagine a time when I would feel comfortable making that same personal decision.
I was reflecting on this very thought this evening as I was having a conversation with a dear friend who is living with J and I right now. He is an amazing cook. Has gone to culinary school, owns a restaurant, and does all the shopping and cooking for our house right now as he lives with us. As he was preparing yet another amazing meal for our family, he was telling me about his day at work. He mentioned that his new boss asked him what his hobbies were. He listed several things to his boss, none of which were cooking. When I asked him why not cooking, he looked at me and very simply said, “Cooking isn’t a hobby for me. It’s my passion. That’s different.”
Those two conversations rang particularly true for how I’m feeling right now. I can have a career without having a Career. I can have a passion for education without it being something that envelops all aspects of my professional life. I can continue to have a “strong desire to achieve something, requiring determination and hard work.”
It’s just going to look different than it has in the past. That undying yearning for upward mobility is being slowly replaced by an ever-increasing desire for balance. Time for me. Time for my husband. Time for my child. And time at work, in concert with one another instead of working against each other.
And I can still make a difference and change the life of a child—my own. And I can still work hard at achieving something—I can work to find a balance in my work life and personal life and find an appropriate outlet for my passion in education instead of pigeon-holing that passion into a 60 hour a week vocation.
So maybe I’m not losing my ambition, but merely redirecting it. And I think I’m at peace with that for now. Something’s gotta give, and soon. And whatever that looks like; that will be the grand what’s next.
