
Ambition can be poison - mh_
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3547-ambition-can-be-poison
======
bobsy
While I understand the topic i don't like this example. The article is about a
wealthy guy who can travel the world racing cars.. who then got pissy at
coming second.

The objective of a car race is to win.. especially if you have the best team
and car. You should be somewhat dejected if you didn't. It is the nature of
competitive events.

This article has first world rich boy problems written all over it.

A far better example of this topic would be a friend of mine. He started his
own business. Worked day and night to get it running. He always said he would
enjoy the spoils of his work. He didn't. He had more and more success but he
got sucked into chasing ambition and achievement. He never eased up or stepped
back. His life became chasing More. His wife left him. He continued to work
excessive hours until he completely burnt out. It was only when he met someone
else that he learnt to take a step back and appreciate and enjoy what he had
created.

If i enter a race in my Punto it is going to be fun. I have little expectation
of winning, I am there to say I did it.

DHH went to Le Man's to win. He didn't. This isn't poisonous ambition. This is
missing the target.. much like this article. If he went to experience it, got
caught up in winning and didn't enjoy any of it then perhaps he would have
some sort of point.

~~~
beambot
_This article has first world rich boy problems written all over it._

DHH is ambitious, successful, and contributed a lot of value (much of it open-
source) to the world. His disappointment does not justify this sort of
demeaning commentary -- least of all on HN.

~~~
mehwoot
Except this is exactly a first world rich boy problem. For the drivers who
earned their spot on their team and who make their living doing that, striving
to be the best is absolutely essential to what they do.

Just because he created value somewhere else doesn't mean he is immune to
commentary on what he does (and then blogs about, no less).

------
smacktoward

       Fill your bowl to the brim
       and it will spill.
    
       Keep sharpening your knife
       and it will blunt.
    
       Chase after money and security
       and your heart will never unclench.
    
       Care about people's approval
       and you will be their prisoner.
    
       Do your work, then step back.
       The only path to serenity.
    

\-- Tao te Ching, Stephen Mitchell translation
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061142662](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061142662)).

~~~
gbog
I tend to prefer Waley's translation:

    
    
       Stretch a bow to the very full,
       And you will wish you had stopped in time;
       Temper a sword-edge to its very sharpest,
       And you will find it soon grows dull.
       When bronze and jade fill your hall.
       It can no longer be guarded.
       Wealth and place breed insolence.
       That brings ruin in its train.
       When your work is done, then withdraw!
       Such is Heaven's Way.
    

Why? Because there is no "security" or "prisoner" in the original. And
"serenity" is a far-fetched interpretation for "Heaven's Way", which is just
the name of the daoist "Doctrine".

[http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?no=9&l=Daodejing](http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?no=9&l=Daodejing)

------
Zikes
This reminds me of Stephen Fry's recent post about depression[1]. Many of the
reactions to DHH's post seem to focus on his social and financial status (e.g.
"first world rich boy problems"), as if to say his success means he has no
right to feel any negative emotions. This is something that troubled Stephen
deeply, and was likely a significant barrier to his seeking help.

It may be difficult for us to relate to his particular situation, but if we
look for the lesson he's trying to teach and apply it to our own lives, even
superficially, we may learn something of value.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933557)

~~~
comrade_ogilvy
That is a good point. Why is a successful person with resources not allowed to
openly admit they are in need of personal growth? Is such an admission more
legitimate from the mouth of a less successful person?

------
ChuckMcM
This really resonated with me, I realized at one point that I couldn't enjoy
video games if I didn't win them. There was another article about the Startup
bus and the toxicity of doing whatever it took to "win".

I am much more appreciative of the Journey now than I was when I was younger.

~~~
michaelochurch
I think it's hard to be appreciative of "the journey" in the startup world, or
in work in general, when the reward disparities are so vast.

I'm not talking about money, because that's actually fairly equalized. Great
developers and bad ones at the same age/experience level and location will be
within 20% of each other, in general, salary-wise. It's all the other stuff:
esteem, autonomy, creative control, advancement. If you don't get that, and if
you're also forced to subordinate to others, you lose motivation pretty
quickly.

Most people do VC-funded startups to buy their way out of having to work, but
most of these companies have horrible cultures and make working a lot worse,
which is counterproductive to the spirit of that goal. As a society, we should
instead try to _fix_ work, because we're a long way from being able to buy
everyone out of it.

~~~
ChuckMcM
_" I think it's hard to be appreciative of "the journey" in the startup world,
or in work in general, when the reward disparities are so vast."_

This statement captures the essential conflict that I have sought (and
largely) resolved within myself.

The term "reward disparities" is the cancer that eats away at appreciating the
journey. In my case it was just code for "winning" or "not winning". You won
if you got the highest reward, if you did not get the highest reward you did
not win. Letting go of 'winning' or 'losing' removes the reward disparities as
an influence on enjoying the journey. That was essentially what dhh wrote, and
what I resonate with. I'm much happier having realized that I was letting
those disparities destroy my appreciation of those around me and the
opportunities I got to participate in.

------
bhewes
This type of talk is much needed in the Tech world. Nice to see someone like
David actual call the problem out. A problem as old as time.

The Stoic view - "The perfect archer is concerned to take perfect aim, to do
everything an archer can do to hit the target. Actually hitting the target is
secondary. If any unpredictable gust of wind carries the arrow away and it
misses the target, this does not reflect on his mastery of the art and hence
does not really affect the archer."

Miyamoto Musashi addresses the same issue in his "Book of Five Rings"

------
pge
I'm reminded of Henry Newbolt's wonderful poem:

To set the cause above renown,

To love the game beyond the prize,

To honor while you strike him down,

The foe that comes fearless eyes.

To hold the life of battle good,

And dear the land that gave thee birth,

and dearer yet the brotherhood

that binds the brave of all the earth.

------
pvnick
> That’s exactly the danger of what too much ambition can do: Narrow the range
> of acceptable outcomes to the ridiculous, and then make anything less seem
> like utter failure

I love this quote, it succinctly puts in words the uneasy feeling I've had
with ambition.

------
hjay
I also had a problem with being "overly ambitious" early on in my life. Any
satisfaction gained from being first in anything quickly died off, while
placing 2nd gave me nightmares constantly and made me hate myself for it. I
recently wrote a blog post about it [1].

Luckily, I was thrown into a foreign country where I was able to feel failure
every single day at school until I was no longer overly resistant to it.

[1]: [http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/the-cost-of-
underselling/](http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/the-cost-of-underselling/)

------
jusben1369
"Armed with the fastest and most reliable car, the best-prepared team, and two
of the fastest team mates in the business"

\- If all these facts are indeed true then it does not seem too ambitious to
expect to win the race. And one should be meaningfully disappointed at losing.
I think there's some confusion here between over achieving and under
achieving.

If they were such underdogs (resources, experience, team) that a Top 25 finish
seemed unlikely then I can understand how beating yourself up over 2nd would
be too overly ambitious. This though seems like healthy "We kind of under
achieved given what was possible going into this"

Edit: Maybe not under achieved but understandably disappointed we didn't go
one spot better.

------
kposehn
2nd in LMP2

Wow. Having done plenty of amateur racing myself, I can say that his
accomplishment is an amazing feat of determination, focus and skill. One day
I'd love to do the same - not out of ambition, but because I love to race.

~~~
ericcumbee
Finishing the 24 Hours of Le Mans period is an amazing feat.

------
jmduke
Courage can be poison.

Determination can be poison. Curiosity, compassion, and patience, too -- all
are good traits to have but will poison you from within if you start molding
your entire life around them, without moderation.

I like my eggs with Sriracha, but they're gonna be pretty bad eggs if I drown
them in it.

------
stevenkovar
"But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness." [1]

DHH's point seems to be falling on deaf ears for a large portion of the
audience out of resentment for his financial status rather than embraced for
exemplifying the law of diminishing returns at the emotional level.

This post is about the realization that an imbalanced life can rob from you
the satisfaction of living. A singular focus can propel a person or team, but
each incremental improvement comes at a higher cost than the last. Becoming
the best is more exhaustive emotionally than it is financially; there is a
certain solitude at the top. Rapid growth is chaotic—harder to manage,
especially emotionally. I've noticed a trend of deeply emotional, saddening
stories of this ambition overload and solitude DHH talks about, right here on
HN.

Within our community it's easy to compare ourselves to our peers. Someone we
know had their made-it-big moment, but they _obviously_ just got lucky, or
we're better than them. It's easy to seek validation through "success" or some
external ideal, fueled by ambition and blinded by our own self-interest.

Slow down. Find a mentor who's been there. Learn to enjoy the process. Look to
deliver happiness to those around you, and receive it graciously when they
give it back. Don't seek happiness for yourself; create it for someone else.

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJrNHdzm0k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJrNHdzm0k)

------
pattisapu
The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those
malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left
living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which
has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians
ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east
reverenced in their statue devil;—Ahab did not fall down and worship it like
them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he
pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments;
all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that
cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and
thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made
practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the
sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down;
and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell
upon it.

—Melville, Moby-Dick

------
ianstallings
This is where playing poker has served me well for years. I know I can win.
But I can't win them all. I technically only need a small percentage of wins
versus losses to be a winner. So losing is okay. But I agree 100%, don't let
your head get the best of you. I think every man struggles with his own
competitive ego and the older we get the more we realize the damage it can
cause.

------
spudlyo
I love that DHH's unbridled awesomeness can also be a valuable lesson about
life. He has much to teach us.

~~~
Yhippa
"I am so awesome that when I don't get what I want it hurts because I'm used
to getting what I want."

I have tried in sports and in other areas of life to win and be awesome and it
does sting when you come up just short. I've failed so much that it's easier
for me to accept it now. What other choice do I have? Get debilitatingly
bitter over things? That's not productive.

The way he writes about it doesn't sound right to me. Did he write one big
long humblebrag?

------
yaddayadda
Reminds me of this TED talk -
[http://www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik.html)
(the difference between the East & the West)

------
nnq
> Happiness doesn’t lie in the fulfillment of the expected. Neither in all the
> trinkets and trophies of the world. It’s in enjoying the immersion of the
> process, not the final outcome.

Thumbs up for this, but let me add that it can lie in _the fulfillment of the
unexpected, the happiness of discovery and exploration, and of ending up
creating things that are very different from what you set up to create in the
first place._ This kind of "exploratory happiness" is my drug of choice ;)

------
Helpful_Bunny
_For mine own good All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepp 'd in so far
that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er._

Ambition is no bad thing, as long as it's tempered. I think a problem with
this piece is that he identified his issue, but never asked the killer
question:

If he (and his team) had been both ambitious _and_ thoroughly enjoying the
entire experience, would they have won? There's much to be said about "being
in the zone", and it feels from his writing that his ambition dulled this side
for him. I'd be interested to hear what the experiences of the 1st and 3rd
placed teams were, in comparison.

Of course, this is his leisure, so the question is doubly important: if you're
in a business you can rationalize not enjoying the experience of making your
$500 million victory whilst enjoying the outcome. In leisure, the entire point
is enjoying the whole thing.

------
bitwize
This reminds me of a parody[0] of an Oracle press release I once posted to
Reddit.

[0]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1ff8j3/java_on_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1ff8j3/java_on_sparc_t58_servers_is_fast/ca9oxx6)

------
patrickaljord
> That’s a monumental achievement by almost any standards, yet also one of the
> least enjoyable experiences I’ve had driving a race car — all because of
> ambition.

I sincerly thought he was going to talk about how the fact that someone died
in a car crash two days ago at Le Mans ruined the party. Then I realized he
was talking about his own ambition. Not saying he's selfish because of that
though, it's pretty human to care first about your own life.
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/2013/06/22/allan-...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/2013/06/22/allan-
simonsen-crash-24-hours-of-le-mans/2448831/)

------
scopendo
Frankly, I don't care whether David's post is this or that. What I care about
is the point - optimise your life for happiness and recognise that happiness
is in the doing, in the living, not the outcome.

------
gbog
"Rightfully so, ambition is universally revered."

Not true.

The use of "universally" should be limited to a few universal truth and for
jokes about people thinking their limited scope is the universe.

Examples of probable universal truths (other than mathematic or physic laws):
\- Mother universally smile to their infants. (Few exceptions) \- Incest taboo
is near-universal. \- Fear of the unknown is almost universal.

Wrongs: \- Men universally prefer big waist and boobs. \- Religion is
universal. \- Everyone loves pets/sport/music.

And no, the quote above is not a figure de style, it is just poorly thought
writing.

------
mbesto
_That’s exactly the danger of what too much ambition can do: Narrow the range
of acceptable outcomes to the ridiculous, and then make anything less seem
like utter failure._

Poison implies something that slowly devours you and your body with little
ability to control/quell it. I see ambition as inherently good. It's the
"constant pursuit of perfection".

This "poison" is easy to deal with - just go again next year and win it.

~~~
bonzoesc
_This "poison" is easy to deal with - just go again next year and win it._

At what cost, though? From DHH's post:

 _When you expect to win, it’s merely a checked box if you do — after the
initial rush of glory dies down._

Winning isn't everything, and in fact can mean very little. Spending
exorbitant sums of money (LMP2 isn't cheap) and risking your life (not
everyone who started Le Mans on Saturday lived to finish) might not be worth
it.

~~~
jenius
Absolutely nailed it with this response. Wish I could upvote more than once.

------
cyanbane
Odd safety car positioning can also be fairly poisonous.

~~~
ericcumbee
Pit Straight, Mulsanne Straight, and Arnage. Not sure where else to put them
makes sense.

------
subsystem
Being "good" at loosing takes training. It's one of the things you learn if
you play sports (especially team sports) long enough.

------
mtdewcmu
The danger of ambition is the theme of Macbeth, and other classics -- at
least, that's what I've been told.

------
beat
Sure, ambition can be a poison that kills your soul.

But without ambition, were you alive to be poisoned in the first place?

~~~
frou_dh
Here are the first four words and the gist of TFA:

> In the right dose

\---

I casually watched the race and it was cool seeing dhh on the board. I was
rooting for his #24 car!

~~~
joshu
ALMS allows crazy access to the teams and drivers. I got to say hi to him a
few years ago:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/7260571410](http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/7260571410)

~~~
frou_dh
Cool :)

------
devmvc
Have you ever heard of the self-advertising agency of 37 signals? So gorgeous,
so great, so smart and so on and on this David boy. Come on guys for real ?
Why can't I zoom in the Blog from an Ipad? Cheers

------
shin_lao
It's the dose that makes the poison.

------
michaelochurch
You should stick to Bridge, then.

~~~
scott_karana
I don't quite understand your point, when he and his team took the second best
possible position in the highest non-manufacturer class in one of the most
famous, expensive, competitive, and prestigious races in the world.

This is before even considering his influence because of Ruby on Rails.

I think you missed the entire point of the article.

~~~
michaelochurch
Card game reference.

------
Irregardless
Oh, you're so awesome it hurts? Sorry to hear about your rich people problems.

> the greatest motor race in the world: 24 hours of Le Mans

The entire southern half of the U.S. begs to differ. Personally, I'd go with
the Monaco Grand Prix if we're talking cars. If we're talking about "motor
races" in general, it'd definitely be the Isle of Man TT. Hell, any one of the
18 yearly Moto GP races is probably better than Le Mans.

~~~
pg
It's mortifying that this mixture of insult and irrelevance has so many
upvotes. I know everyone's been worried about the amount of politics on the
frontpage lately, but I'm much more worried about this comment. Political
storms pass eventually, but comments like this rising to the top of HN threads
is a sign of real decay.

Whatever you think of DHH, there is an important point in this article, and
thanks to the people who upvoted this comment, the people talking about it are
relegated to the bottom of the thread.

~~~
vl
Well, a lot of discussions in the last few months have top comment which a)
was made early and b) disputes some minor technical point in the original
article, while not being relevant to discussion.

Maybe making younger low scored/recently upvoted comments sink even slower
could fix that?

In the meantime I use Chrome extension to fold those.

~~~
pg
Yeah, I know. The underlying problem is the same. I've spent a good deal of
time thinking about how to fix it. I wonder if it would work to normalize
votes based on how far down the page a comment is. God would that complicate
the code though.

~~~
chris_l
Why don't you weight votes by age of the account? That would make the "old HN"
more influential in the current one.

~~~
pg
Interestingly enough, in this case that would have worked. If you only counted
the votes of the oldest accounts, the comment in question would have had
negative points.

