Ambition bites the nails of success

February 24, 2008

Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!

My family and I had a great day today. It was everything I wanted in a weekend day — relaxing, fun, bonding, and productive. I think it was the first weekend day in a long time, when I felt relaxed despite staying home all day with kids. Usually I brace myself for weekends and holidays, as it’s much harder work to stay home than a hard day at my job — people really had it backwards when they thought that the husband and father needed to be honored because they went out and did the “hard” work. No, staying home and raising kids is harder and is more important. At least that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.

After putting kids to bed my wife and I were reflecting on the success of today — and she said something that struck me. We didn’t have any agenda, nor any ambition for today.  And yet, we were also productive (we cleaned the house and caught up on laundry — yes, that’s productive!).

Or should I say, we feel that we were productive because we didn’t have preconceived notion of how much we were supposed to accomplish today?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for goal-setting, planning for efficiency, and for ambitions. Without them, it’d be hard for anyone to accomplish something worthwhile — not impossible, but hard.

But I myself think I lean too far the other way. Ambition is my baggage, and I get crushed by its weight. My plans often set me up for failure because I stuff too much and try to overachieve. My pursuit of efficiency kills off just about all possibilities of good surprises and spontaneity.

I’ve accomplished much in my life, and everyday I am productive. Yet if I keep feeling like I didn’t accomplish enough, that’s the state I perpetually recreate for myself — it doesn’t matter what I accomplish, I’ll never be happy about it.

I have dreams, I have my ambitions, I can’t help having them. I like to dream big and thing of big picture. That’s a good thing.

But I can use much more lightening up, taking it easy. Trying too hard does just as much damage as not trying hard enough.

Today was a great day. I think tomorrow can be just as good. Life, the way it is right now, is good enough.

And that’s a relief.

Filed under: Ari, Reflections |