
Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives (1992) - milkshakes
https://ambition-book.com
======
morbidhawk
> When we win, we try for more; when we fail, we cut back.

Thanks for sharing this book, OP. I've personally seen this range of ambition
in my own life. I can very much relate to this. When I was younger I was
always seeking more out of life. Now becoming an adult and struggling as sole-
provider of my family and spending many years attending university while
trying to help my wife through severe depression and my special-needs child I
am now careful about finding new commitments and I'm trying to greatly
simplify my life.

~~~
ameen
I feel there's more to this. I've suffered from chronic depression throughout
my entire life. The last bout caused me to quit my job and move back to our
family home.

Early in my life when I hadn't experienced failure, I used to aspire a lot and
actually did achieve quite a bit despite my shortcomings. Programming whilst
depressed isn't an easy task. I've been actively trying to get back into the
rat race and trying to pursue something achievable yet worth doing.

So while we cut back, we define our limitations and make further goals
achievable (rather than moonshots). I'm not going to be the president or a CEO
of a $100BN company anytime soon, but it's not like I couldn't cut it as a dev
at a decent company.

In failing we realise our limits and rediscover humility.

~~~
morbidhawk
> Early in my life when I hadn't experienced failure, I used to aspire a lot
> and actually did achieve quite a bit despite my shortcomings

I was just like this too. I would have preferred experiencing more failure
when I was younger when the risks held less consequences. Now I feel like I
never met the expectations of my former self but now my future aspirations are
more achievable. Rather than running my own business like I always wanted to
do or working for a big-name tech company, I'll be happy when I self-publish
the book I'm working on with no expectation of it being successful. I am happy
with progress since progress is better than failure and doesn't have the same
negative consequences when I don't succeed.

~~~
ameen
> progress is better than failure and doesn't have the same negative
> consequences

For sure, we need to keep moving. I like to compare us to sharks, if we stand
still we exponentially increase our chances of failing.

I'd love to read that book of yours once it's done. Taking care of the two
most important people in your life whilst juggling a career is no easy task.

------
mcguire
Looks like a very interesting book, particularly for those of us who are
struggling with the fact that we'll never be the success we once thought we
would. Thanks!

For everyone else, check out the prologue; it's short and a good read.

~~~
mangeletti
Wow, my heart sank when I read this comment.

The frustrating reality of life...

~~~
branchless
Define success. It's impossible for everyone to be way above average. Is it so
bad to be a jack of all trades? A good husband, good father and good community
member, instead of world domination of some e-commerce area that would have
happened anyway?

I'm not saying give up, I'm just saying if we were all Steve Jobs (not to pick
on him I've no idea if he was/was not a "good" person) it would be a mad
world.

~~~
cryoshon
A dark thought: today we call a jack of all trades unemployed. Illusions of
polycompetency are really just multiple specializations when in a business
context.

------
laotzu
Success is as dangerous as failure.

Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?

Whether you go up the ladder or down it,

Your position is shaky.

When you stand with your own two feet on the ground,

You will always keep your balance.

-Lao Tzu

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syntheticnature
It looks like this is a web page that then loads a PDF from
[https://ambition.gratis/ambition.pdf](https://ambition.gratis/ambition.pdf)
\-- to what end I'm not sure, though it did screw with my trying to directly
save it into a "read offline later" folder.

~~~
jrcii
> into a "read offline later" folder.

I have a "pretend you will read offline later but never actually read" folder.

~~~
rashkov
Same here, though I find that it still helps a lot with procrastination.
Separating the process of discovering content and actually consuming it means
I'll only lose 10 minutes instead of getting sucked in for an hour because I'm
too afraid to close the tab.

I actually got through a nice chunk of my read offline folder during a long
car trip recently, but that only justified this hoarding tendency!

------
inanutshellus
For those not sure about diving directly into a PDF at work or want to know
why they should, here's a review I found online of the book:

[https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gilbert-
brim/ambi...](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gilbert-
brim/ambition/)

"Succinct and finely tuned thoughts on why happiness has little to do with
money, youth, or even education, by the director of the MacArthur Foundation
Research Network on Successful Mid-Life Development. Humans make themselves
happy, Brim argues, by finding a ``way to live at the level of just manageable
difficulty.''"

------
cryoshon
This looks interesting, but it'll take some time to read through.

------
mickanio
He makes an interesting note about robots in the first chapter... which makes
me think about the role of 'ambition' in AI. Any writing about that subject
out there?

------
kamaal
A tangential. Is this book available in mobi format for the kindle?

~~~
milkshakes
it will be in 4-6 weeks. email ambitionbookbrim [at] google's free email and i
will make sure you get a copy

~~~
pfista
Any chance for an epub?

