
Ask HN: Small footprint vs. ambition - whyso
I have always liked the idea of keeping one&#x27;s footprint small. Perhaps that happened because of how I was brought up or because of my introverted nature or because of the literature that I came across. This has helped me to have less baggage and be able to move just about anywhere, without even a slightest emotional disturbance, and that has served me well in my tech career.<p>However, I have been realizing that I haven&#x27;t had any sort of ambitions for as long as I remember. I have always gone with the flow, without thinking or working too much for it. But I find this has started creating problems for me. Without a guiding star, I am getting less inclined, day by day, to make any sort of effort.<p>The issue I think here is that ambitions are essentially wants, a thing you want to achieve without a logical tie to your existence, and by training myself to keep my footprint low, I have essentially trained myself to have a few wants, if any, thereby killing any ambitions that might come from those wants. I am unable to find a reason out if this. I.e. if keeping footprint low is the way of life, then how can one have something to work for?
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bwindels
Ambitions don't have to be about material wants. I'd say the best, longest
lasting ones, aren't even. And there is meaningful work to be found related to
anti-materialism. I can think of writing/setting up software to let old
hardware shine again, work on software to protect privacy, decentralize the
internet, ... these are just on the top of me head. It just doesn't pay so
well, and even if you are willing to accept the financial downgrade, these
jobs are not so common and might require more work and dedication to land a
position. Much like it is for most people outside of tech :)

You don't even have to make a job out of it. You seem to have strong beliefs.
Do something with those beliefs and find something you feel is easy and worth
it to put your energy into. Not easy, but can be fulfilling.

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whyso
I have had hard time identifying non-materialistic ambitions. My mind has
always been able to short circuit the ideas, similar to the ones you
mentioned, as a way to make more money. Effectively turning them into greed,
which is supposed to be bad. But I think I have been making wrong conclusions.
As mentioned in other comments, developing a stronger feeling towards non-self
pain points and retraining my mind would probably be the way to go.

Most of my beliefs are for self. Mostly because of the idea that each of us is
a random instance, executing for optimizing random functions. Some are aware
of the functions, and for some it is a black box. This breaks the boundaries
between right and wrong etc in my mind and so on. But also diminishes the idea
of exposing these beliefs and doing something with them seems meaningless.

~~~
meric
Don't let yourself confined by what's "supposed to be". Trust your emotional
state derive from what's good or bad from first principles (i.e. from
experience).

That said - it's good to do an exercise and imagine it's 10 years later,
you've created a company startup for the sole purpose of making one billion
dollars, think about what you can do with the one billion dollars, what
opportunities you've sacrificed, what you've risked.

How do you feel about it? Was it worth it? Would you do it again?

The answer might be different for everyone.

You can repeat for any other number of ambitious goals - getting married to a
very good person; spending two decades raising children; moving to a new
country; or even getting divorced; travelling around the world; becoming the
best at an activity; become world famous for something, etc.

For any one goal - think, what kind of person tend to achieve that goal
easily, then the price of achieving that goal is to become that kind of
person. Do you still want to achieve goal? If I didn't want to become the kind
of person who'd marry my partner, it means to me I didn't actually want to
marry her to begin with. Personally, to achieve X, is equivalent to, to become
the person who achieves X easily.

It helps me re-focus on what actions to take.

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DoreenMichele
I keep a small footprint. My ambitions mostly grow out of personal need and
pain. I have the impression that people who don't have large pain points in
their life frequently have no significant ambition.

But I will suggest that 7 billion people and growing constitute a threat to
your welfare. I have an interest in promoting small footprint solutions,
though I don't feel I am very effective at it. I will suggest that a blog or
other project to share what you know can be part of the solution for a world
constantly threatening to come apart at the seams from global warming, animal
extinction, water shortages etc.

~~~
whyso
I have come across a lot of folks in my life who have comfortable lives, by
virtue of working hard for it or being born into it, and too have observed
that they fall into a slump, such that a major shift to that lifestyle can
bring them down to their knees. I am, frankly, scared of landing in a similar
situation. I do try to keep myself sharp by reading/trying out things here and
there, but since I don't apply them to a meaningful extent, I have hard time
trusting these.

As far as sharing the stuff I know is concerned, I have held an opinion that I
don't have any new knowledge. Most of what I know has been derived from works
of others, and all of that is already available out there. So I have felt that
duplicating that information just increases entropy without any meaningful
gain to anyone. That is why I haven't made an effort in that direction.

I might sound like a bad human saying this, but I think I have been largely
apathetic about the world. I do think about the worldly issues, usually going
into a zone such that I am unable to sleep at night, but I don't think I have
ever taken a step to contribute to it meaningfully. I will take up your
suggestion and see if I can start putting my skills to use in that direction.

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skosch
Over the next few decades we will face enormous challenges as a species, and
there are lots of resources to inspire you what to dedicate your efforts
towards. 80000hours.org is a good start; it has lots of links to other pages.
Ambition is orthogonal to greed and vanity.

I do personally relate to your question. I catch myself thinking of myself as
modest and content, when really I'm often just complacent. I have found that
silence (i.e. literally turning off the music) has helped me become somewhat
more alert to the unfulfilled parts of my life.

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btkramer9
I've been running into a similar conundrum lately with learning an instrument.
You kind of need the instrument and associated equipment. Same goes for
athletic equipment and sports. I think it's necessary to make the compromise
for things that do enrich your life even if they make moving difficult or your
footprint greater than desired.

Some interests such as learning a new language require remarkably little
things. A few apps, netflix, some books (could be electronic) and people to
converse with.

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muzani
That's odd. I love having a small footprint but am also very ambitious. It
helps a lot because groupthink and chasing fame seems to gravitate towards
mediocrity.

You can find your own path and go alone. It's very calming, like a hike up a
hill or a motorcycle ride through the countryside. Modern tech makes it very
easy to take your own path too.

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rickrustall
Discovering your "flow" might help
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_\(psychology\))

