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Crisis and ambition
Apr. 11th, 2019 03:31 am"Ambition comes when early force is spent
And when we find no longer all things possible.
Ambition comes behind and unobservable."
- T.S. Eliot
When you're in middle-age, and if you manage to find a few ways to settle the horrible angst of injustice and bad habits absorbed earlier in life, your attention turns to long-range goals that are complicated and have vague terms of success. Writing that big novel, starting that company, raising children, building a community, et cetera.
Goals like these require stability. So you make an effort to stop tinkering with the fundamentals of your life, like where you live, what you do for a living, who you spend time with. You go with things that are "good enough", or things that are occasionally awful but in a predictable way. You gamely tend to these while you work on your big goals, and if you're lucky, your divided effort is enough and it all moves along.
If you're unlucky, the challenges come too fast, and things break down. You become miserable, even as you're working day by day. This is not what you agreed to when you started this journey. Perhaps it's time to make big changes, including ones that threaten your long-range goals. But the idea of abandoning your goals is terrifying. What else do you have?
You accuse yourself of having a "mid-life crisis," using the term as a weapon to frighten yourself back into line.
You're an adult; you don't get to be in crisis. You pursued happiness for years already and found some, but it didn't accomplish anything big. Big things are your priority now, right? Betraying those just so you can feel better is what selfish children do. The only way out that's allowed is dying in the attempt; that's how you stay dedicated. Not happiness -- the threat of death.
But why? Why turn against yourself? Why believe the stereotype of the mid-life crisis, especially if it shames you?
What advice does the stereotype offer? Stay where you are, with who you are, doing what you are, and resist the urge to change, because change is born of a desire to reclaim your youth, and that's pathetic? Among other things, this equates youthfulness with the ability or need to change, and youthfulness with the desire to leave an unsatisfying situation. That gives way too much credit to the young.
I have spent plenty of time enduring dissatisfying situations while making better plans. That was not time well spent. Throwing more time after it was the easier option. Change was the harder one.
It wasn't wisdom or maturity that held me in those situations. It was fear and doubt. It was the repulsive thought that things were as good as they would ever get, and change would only deprive me of what happiness I currently had.
That would be wisdom only if it was proven by history. If seeking change resulted in a poorer quality of life %51 of the time, that would be enough to make it wisdom. Instead, the odds have never even been close to that. In fact, change has served me well every single time. There is a real phenomenon called "failing upward", and if I pay attention, it's what eventually happens.
Perhaps it helps that I'm the kind of person who keeps planning until the last possible moment before choosing something. But that means lingering in bad situations, and that's a habit I don't like. Either way, I have to keep telling myself that change is not failure.
There is only day by day, now, until there are no more days. What can I reach for? What new way can I connect with the people I know? What stable pattern can I scribble all over?
Get up, dammit; listen to yourself. You know what isn't working. Point it out. No defending, no accusing. Ask for help; ask for time off; ask for suggestions. Drop a few things on the floor. Life is not a support system for your ambitious projects, and acting that way is what got you into this mess. It only works the other way around. Remember why you took them on? How can those lofty goals you've mortgaged your happiness for - the novel, the company, the parenting, the community - be changed so you start seeing a return again?
Everything is on the table.
And when we find no longer all things possible.
Ambition comes behind and unobservable."
- T.S. Eliot
When you're in middle-age, and if you manage to find a few ways to settle the horrible angst of injustice and bad habits absorbed earlier in life, your attention turns to long-range goals that are complicated and have vague terms of success. Writing that big novel, starting that company, raising children, building a community, et cetera.Goals like these require stability. So you make an effort to stop tinkering with the fundamentals of your life, like where you live, what you do for a living, who you spend time with. You go with things that are "good enough", or things that are occasionally awful but in a predictable way. You gamely tend to these while you work on your big goals, and if you're lucky, your divided effort is enough and it all moves along.
If you're unlucky, the challenges come too fast, and things break down. You become miserable, even as you're working day by day. This is not what you agreed to when you started this journey. Perhaps it's time to make big changes, including ones that threaten your long-range goals. But the idea of abandoning your goals is terrifying. What else do you have?
You accuse yourself of having a "mid-life crisis," using the term as a weapon to frighten yourself back into line.
You're an adult; you don't get to be in crisis. You pursued happiness for years already and found some, but it didn't accomplish anything big. Big things are your priority now, right? Betraying those just so you can feel better is what selfish children do. The only way out that's allowed is dying in the attempt; that's how you stay dedicated. Not happiness -- the threat of death.
But why? Why turn against yourself? Why believe the stereotype of the mid-life crisis, especially if it shames you?
What advice does the stereotype offer? Stay where you are, with who you are, doing what you are, and resist the urge to change, because change is born of a desire to reclaim your youth, and that's pathetic? Among other things, this equates youthfulness with the ability or need to change, and youthfulness with the desire to leave an unsatisfying situation. That gives way too much credit to the young.
I have spent plenty of time enduring dissatisfying situations while making better plans. That was not time well spent. Throwing more time after it was the easier option. Change was the harder one.
It wasn't wisdom or maturity that held me in those situations. It was fear and doubt. It was the repulsive thought that things were as good as they would ever get, and change would only deprive me of what happiness I currently had.
That would be wisdom only if it was proven by history. If seeking change resulted in a poorer quality of life %51 of the time, that would be enough to make it wisdom. Instead, the odds have never even been close to that. In fact, change has served me well every single time. There is a real phenomenon called "failing upward", and if I pay attention, it's what eventually happens.
Perhaps it helps that I'm the kind of person who keeps planning until the last possible moment before choosing something. But that means lingering in bad situations, and that's a habit I don't like. Either way, I have to keep telling myself that change is not failure.
There is only day by day, now, until there are no more days. What can I reach for? What new way can I connect with the people I know? What stable pattern can I scribble all over?
Get up, dammit; listen to yourself. You know what isn't working. Point it out. No defending, no accusing. Ask for help; ask for time off; ask for suggestions. Drop a few things on the floor. Life is not a support system for your ambitious projects, and acting that way is what got you into this mess. It only works the other way around. Remember why you took them on? How can those lofty goals you've mortgaged your happiness for - the novel, the company, the parenting, the community - be changed so you start seeing a return again?
Everything is on the table.
