On Ambitions: Poison or Minerals?
How many times have you felt like you had to dial back your ambitions? I’m talking about when the world makes you feel like you need to shrink yourself to fit a smaller mold— like a hermit crab forced to stay in a shell too small. Or even move into a smaller one.
Growing up in Portland, it took me until my late teens to realize my ambitions were too big for that city. A friend of mine— also from Portland— who moved to the east coast the second we graduated high school reflected to me later on: “Ambition is frowned upon in Portland.”
Whoa. I’d never thought of it that way.
In my early 20s, I started dreamscaping: I wanted to move abroad, to a big city. When I was 23, the plan was completed and I set the date. On November 17, I’d move to Quito, Ecuador.
And I was scared. I didn’t know anyone there, and I’d never lived outside my hometown.
“So why are you moving at all if you’re scared to do it?!” My boyfriend at the time asked in frustration. As much as he wanted to support me, he would rather I stay in Portland with him.
“It’s because I’m scared that I have to do it.”
He didn’t understand, and that’s how I knew our relationship had to end there. Like the rest of my peers in Portland, he wanted me to stay in the bubble of familiarity. The unknowns of chasing one’s dreams were just too daunting to face.
When I was 28, I had my first baby. And I was a horrible mom at first— I had never really interacted with a baby, let alone taken care of one. I wasn’t prepared for the demands of having a newborn, especially one as needy as my son was.
As someone who’d been actively climbing to new heights in her professional life for 10 years, spending an hour a day exercising, and pursuing her writing hobby in her free time, parenting a newborn was a complete shock to my system.
I couldn’t do anything I wanted to do. I could hardly shower every day. Forget hobbies. Writing was unthinkable. Exercise was borderline impossible, unless it came in the form of rocking my baby to sleep (which is absolutely a workout with my kids). But my nightly yoga? A relic of the past.
I returned from maternity leave 7 weeks postpartum. When my baby wasn’t at daycare, he was home with me. We were awake together 4 times per night, for hours on end. Every night.
Crying from frustration was my new normal. My pillows were wilted from all the punches.
And I felt horrible— I was clearly an awful mom. I couldn’t get my baby to sleep. Sometimes I couldn’t get him to stop crying. When people say “she’s a natural,” I had never felt more like the opposite of that.
One day my husband came home from work early after I sent him a sobbing emoji. He had only been gone for an hour, but I couldn’t take being alone with the baby all day. He relieved me of all duties, and I drove to a viewpoint. Gazing at the ocean, I took the chance to ask myself, why am I so frustrated?
I realized I was frustrated because I felt like I was stuck standing still. By my own standards, I was unproductive. I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. I felt like I was falling behind in my professional, physical, and mental development.
I wasn’t fulfilling my identity as an ambitious person.
Those first few months of being a parent were the hardest in my life. Now, 11 weeks after having my second child, I’ve been much more at peace with the need to dial back all other ambitions while I care for a newborn.
Why? How can I be ok with putting my ambitions out of view? I’m still an ambitious person.
There are few experiences as sacred as bringing a new life into the world and nurturing it. A newborn baby needs to drink milk every 2-3 hours. They can’t even lift their head on their own or drink water. But within six months, they’re sitting upright, eating solid foods, and having full on interactions with you.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now know how short the all-consuming newborn phase is, and how quickly you’re throttled back into your normal, busy routine. After four or five months, you’re sleeping again and back to sprinting toward your aspirations.
It’s difficult to surrender, but once you realize you’re in a “newborn phase” of life, you’d regret NOT dialing back all other ambitions. Embracing the slowness of each day, you notice how your baby is learning and changing so much, so fast. Before you know it, they’re walking and talking, and they don’t want you to hold them tight.
But do newborn phases transcend the experience of becoming a parent? I think they do…
As I defined the newborn phase– a time when you’re nurturing something so precious, so temporary, and so fragile– suddenly, it struck me: The newborn phase is the sacred moment you experience after having just accomplished a major goal. Just fallen head over heels in love? Newborn phase– slow down time and soak in every thrilling moment. On sabbatical? Thank your lucky stars. Sleep in as late as you want. Wash the dishes by hand. Eat a meal in silence to savor every bite. Explore new music, new hiking trails, and new hobbies. Just had a baby? There are few accomplishments as rewarding, and moments as fleeting.
Every newborn phase feels so different from the normal pace of life. When it eventually dries up, you’ll always look back on it feeling so much wealthier because of it. And at the same time, it feels like such a distant memory that you can’t recall if it really happened or if it was just a dream.
Leaving Portland when I was 23 served as a springboard in my life. It accelerated my path toward becoming a leader, maximizing my income, and unlocking key connections in my career. It also led me to some of my best friends, and provided me with some of the most enriching experiences of my life. I believe it was even the reason I met my now husband and have mothered two wonderful children.
If I had dialed back my ambitions so I could fit into the small shell my peers wanted of me in Portland, I don’t know where I’d be, but I can’t imagine I’d be as fulfilled as I am now.
When life pressures you to shrink your aspirations and focus on something smaller, you must discern whether it’s the Portland pressure or a newborn phase. One type is a poison that will slowly kill off all your ambitions. The other type is mineral for your soil, that’ll help you and everyone you influence grow bigger, stronger, and even more ambitious.
Thanks to Andriy Nestruiev for the photo.