Agreed. A lot of people seem to think that infinite growth is sustainable, even by a single person.
When I was last interviewing, I kept getting asked, "Where do you want to be in 5/10 years?"
When I answered that I wanted to be programming (the thing I was applying for) they all asked if I had no ambition.
I told them that I've already met my ambition. I've got the job I want, and I intend to keep it. I didn't want to be a manager, and I didn't want to do things other than programming.
Of course, it's impossible to do only that, but over 10 years later I'm still mainly programming as my day job. I'm not at a "dead end" in my career. I'm exactly where I wanted to be from the start.
"A lot of people seem to think that infinite growth is sustainable, even by a single person."
Including my managers/company. Always pushing for personal improvement in the form of the next level. Of course personal improvement can be continuous excluding the levels, like in learning new programming related stuff (designs, tech, algorithms, etc) or business/product related stuff that you're implementing.
"asked if I had no ambition"
I was (still am) a midlevel dev. I was performing the work of a tech lead for a year, followed by a year of filling a senior dev role. I had a skip level with the department head. When they asked me my 5 year plan I said I just wanted to be a midlevel dev. I mean, that's the best I can hope for if they simply won't promote me after years of performing above my level. Huge mistake. They labeled me as having no ambition. I had to switch to a different team/department so they wouldn't fire me.
Sounds like a career to me. At least that's how most of them work.