For most of my life, ambition felt like gravity. I didn’t question it. I accepted it as the rite of passage. It meant something to me. To have a goal, a direction of who I wanted to become. I oriented my life around it. I told myself that my interests had to align with that larger ambition I had planned out. Otherwise, they weren’t worth pursuing.
Ambition often acted like my North Star. Something I could work towards. Something that always justified my choices.
I was wrong.
Ambition can point you somewhere meaningful, but it’s a terrible reason to stay.
Let me explain.
When I was younger, I told myself I wanted to be a famous writer. I imagined that I’d go on book tours, meet wonderful people, have long conversations with them, and that would inspire me to write more. It wasn’t the recognition I was chasing, but rather the feeling of writing something that resonated with people and being acknowledged for it.
At the time, ambition felt inseparable from the thing itself. I wanted my writing to matter in a visible way. This ambition gave me a purpose, it got me started. But it wasn’t the reason I stayed.
Somewhere along the way, reality intervened. I didn’t get popular. I didn’t reach millions of people. Most of those who read what I wrote were friends, family, and a handful of strangers. But I kept writing anyway. Not because I had hope that recognition would eventually come, but because It was the only way I made sense of the world around me. Writing clarified thoughts I didn’t know how to hold otherwise. It became less about being read and more about being honest with myself.
The same thing happened when I built my first app. I spent months trying to make it perfect. It was a productivity app that could make everyone who used it more efficient. I held on to a quiet hope that my life would change overnight. That it would somehow unlock something. Opportunity, validation, momentum.
It didn’t. What it changed instead, was me.
I learned what I was capable of finishing. Things that frustrated me during the process. What I enjoyed even when I knew that the outcome was uncertain.
Over time, fame stopped being the point. It didn’t matter as much as it used to. Showing up did. So I stopped chasing it. Not because I outgrew it, but because ambition stopped being the only driver. The work became enough.
Turns out, I still have ambition. It just isn’t loud anymore. It still plays a role; keeping me grounded, showing me who I am.
It no longer asks me to become someone else. It asks for something simpler. To keep writing. To keep building. To take my work seriously, even when it doesn’t lead anywhere obvious.
For the first time, that feels like enough.
