The Siren of Ambition

Balancing Ambition and Responsibility

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

As the days of summer have ticked closer and closer to 0, I have been reminded of my constant battle to balance my ambition and my responsibilities. For me, this mostly consists of trying to balance running my podcast and writing on my blog with finishing essays and calculating solutions for school.

These lessons come from my interviews with– (I get a cut of the linked books)

• Mason Currey, author of the Daily Rituals books and the Substack, Subtle Maneuvers

• Austin Kleon, New York Times bestselling author of the Steal Like an Artist trilogy (Here’s his Substack)

• Ryan Holiday, New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way, The Daily Stoic, and many others

• Dr. Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit and professor at the University of Pennsylvania

1. The importance of Daily Practice–

            Mason Currey is the author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work and Daily Rituals: Women at Work where he has cataloged the daily routines of over 160 creative individuals (ie: authors, composers, musicians, artists, etc.). When I interviewed him, I was particularly curious about how these people balanced the distant siren call of ambition and the current dictator of duty. Apparently, one of these ways is through their so-called “daily rituals.”

Upon being asked what he gained from researching his subjects’ routines, Currey said he discovered that the famous writers and thinkers of the past often struggled to work. He explained that this fact often comforted him as he soldiered on through his own work.

Talking of the creative process he noted:

“It's this really funny, fragile, fleeting, slippery process. And, you see all the ways, people tried to pin it down and make it something doable. That was the biggest thing for me. [It] was ‘okay’ if I'm having trouble. Maybe I'm actually doing it right.”

The greats weren’t always blessed by the Muses. They had to force themselves each day to their desks. They had to persuade themselves to sit and create.

Later in the interview, he elaborated on how to “pin down” this process.

“[A] habit is a way of taking something really difficult and kind of taming it a little bit.”

He noted that writing and other pursuits become easier when you do them every day. You train your mind to be in “creating” mode at that specific time. Currey also remarked that these “daily rituals” help break large, foreboding projects into doable, daily crumbs (I’ll discuss this more in lesson 2).

Austin Kleon, a past guest and author of the Steal Like an Artist trilogy, also wrote about routines. In the finale of his series, Keep Going, he states:

Rather than restricting your freedom, a routine gives you freedom by protecting you from the ups and downs of life and helping you take advantage of your limited time, energy, and talent. A routine establishes good habits that can lead to your best work.

2. Mixing Practice with Responsibility–

Last school year, I attempted to incorporate my own daily rituals before the day started. These mostly consisted of me trying to achieve my writing ambitions. However, during the second semester, I quickly found that sometimes you have to buckle down on one thing to survive. Even though they only took about an hour and a half of my morning (usually started around 5 or 6 am), my schoolwork demanded every last breath. Although I loved learning at school and playing sports, I felt like I had accidentally relinquished all of my time to others. So, as the piles of homework began to teeter over my small, cowering soul and spring sports began to dominate my evenings, I decided to cut off my daily rituals if only to keep my sanity and my grades.

Not until recently though did I learn that these times can be used to step towards your goals. A few weeks ago, I spoke with Ryan Holiday, the New York Times bestselling author of The Daily Stoic, The Obstacle is the Way, and many others. His most recent book, and the topic of the interview, was Discipline is Destiny.

Upon asking him about how to balance extracurricular pursuits, like my podcast, and life’s responsibilities, like my schoolwork, he proposed that some projects can be symbiotic with your responsibilities. Instead of seeing all of the schoolwork as an intriguing but firm obstacle to my podcast’s success as I had been, he pointed out that “those things are probably more complementary than they are in conflict with each other because the more you learn at school the better you'll be at your podcast.”

If you are pursuing intellectual goals and projects, experiences in the classroom, in personal reading, and in your daily life can blend to create your take on your art. By broadening your perspective and education, you can incorporate unique ideas into your designs.

On top of this, you can use your assignments as opportunities to do your daily practice. When discussing the years before he made his first penny in writing, Holiday explained:

For a good chunk of those six years of writing, I was writing press releases for companies I worked for and memos and things that weren’t particularly satisfying to write. But, I was getting good at writing period, and then that became transferable to the kind of writing that I wanted to do. And so, what you really need as you're starting [are] reps, right? You need opportunities to just do the thing. But, unless you know exactly where you're going to end up in your career, it's hard to know what kind of reps to get.

You aren’t going to have muscle if you don’t get your reps in. You aren’t going to have skills if you don’t get your practice in. Work your mind like you work your muscles. Day by day, muscle gets built in the gym. Day by day, your mind gets built in your rituals. Recognize where it can be built and hone it there.

3. Be Satisfied with Now–

At the end of the interview, Mattie and I asked Dr. Angela Duckworth, the New York Times bestselling author of Grit, what advice she had for teenagers. She reflected on her college self.

Throughout college, Dr. Duckworth was a driven upstart that had her eyes on the prize, a mindset that I can only assume helped propel her to her position now. However, only when she returned to school for her college reunion twenty-five years later did she realize a crucial mistake.

I’ll let her explain:

When I got to the reunion, I looked around. Everyone was happy to see their friends. Roommates were hugging each other. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I don't have as many people to hug me.’ I wish I could go back in time and spend a little less time on my projects and my activities. I wish I could have spent just a little bit longer having late-night conversations with friends, wasting time together, and really participating in the activities that genuinely bond people for life.

Upon hearing this, I was surprised. I hadn’t expected an incredibly successful author and researcher to recommend slowing down. But, I think this gets at the root of my struggle, the balance between speeding up and accomplishing your goals and slowing down and enjoying the ride. And, amidst this never-ending balancing act, making sure that you are being grateful for everyday joys that are often taken for granted.

Holiday also spoke of this in our conversation.

“This is the perennial problem of all successful, talented people, which is that to be great at something requires a lot of focus and a lot of time, an inherently disproportionate amount of time and focus.”

The problem is, if you lean too far into your projects and strive too much, you can leave behind the very reason you wanted to become successful. Holiday remarked that while many successful authors, actors, and businesspeople have accolades, paychecks, and notoriety, many have also ruined their relationships with their friends, kids, and spouses. And, “by the way, this thing that they thought would bring them joy and satisfaction and self-worth, it turns out it's just another thing.”

If you aren’t careful, the siren of ambition will lure you into deep water as you chase the unrealizable beauty of the perfect life. She’ll lead you far away from the safe and meaningful shore of friendship, family, and faith as you constantly lust for more achievement, more fame, more success. She’ll lead you so far away from these necessities that you’ll drown in the sea of your own unsatisfied passions.

The Takeaway–

All we know we have is today. Instead of being overwhelmed by the big projects and the ginormous dreams we carry, we can break these down into a little .05% a day. Through daily writing, through daily reading, through daily thinking, we can grow a tad bit more than yesterday. We just have to add a bit more to our skills today. If we can’t establish a clear routine in the shifting sands of our schedules, then we try to progress by completing a little rep hidden within our work. For me, I can do this by attempting to hone my writing through essays and other assignments. These days compound into weeks, into months, into years as they slowly inch us toward our goals. The achievements of tomorrow are only brought by the daily reps of today.

But, we must always remember why we set off on this journey. We must always remember our priorities. Is our ambition dragging us far away from our other dreams? Is a siren calling us into the deep water with the song of unattainable satisfaction? Remember, everything comes with a cost. Are you sacrificing the right things?

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That’s all I have for this month! As I go about my life, I’m sure I’ll adapt these things. I’m sure I’ll evolve in my understanding and my opinions. There’s always more to learn! Hope you enjoyed!

If you’d like to support my work, please subscribe. Each month or so (I’m still working out the kinks with school starting) you’ll get a lesson or lessons from some of the interesting people I’ve interviewed. Up till now, these have been mostly productivity tips and philosophy, but I’m hoping to dive into some of the fascinating but too-small-for-full-interview topics that guests have mentioned or that I’ve found while researching for conversations. As this is a new Substack, I’m still figuring out all of the details. Stay tuned!