Racing against the clock
Have you ever considered how expectations interact with ambition? With expectations, we tend to suffocate the natural ambition that runs through so many of us. Expectations cut ambition off before it can materialize, never making it to actualization.
I was talking to a walking buddy about this recently and noticed how she emphasized accessing ambition as if it was already there. Dormant, needing to be retrieved. What she really wanted was to figure out how to direct her energy to be more consistent and utilize her ambition. It occurred to me from our conversation that this is probably a hindrance for many.
Last night I was up until 2, having gone to the computer at 7:30 pm. Initially, I expected to be on for 10 minutes, then head out to dinner. The surge that came over me was my creativity pulsating through me, and I felt ideas starting to sprout out to the surface.
Even when I began to feel sleepy and headed to bed, after ten minutes, I got up knowing I had to continue. It becomes a mania to keep going. But often, if I don’t have a concrete picture of whatever resource I think I need, the ambition turns into a wheel of anxiety that starts rolling more unhinged with each flip that it makes.
I don’t need more ambition or even more motivation; what I need more of is access to the rigorous, heated energy and the process of prioritization that follows the spark to create more evenly, if there is such a thing.
I lose touch with the grounding process because of expectations. Ambition sets off a chain of events where I can imagine myself doing the thing I’m motivated to do, feeling proud of the work but really the outcome, retrieving the praise — and because I place so much emphasis on trying to live up to this feigned idea of the future, this great expectation, I get too impatient, and too distracted by my ego.
The untangling of the wheel of anxiety is as straightforward as reminding myself, I’m learning more clearly, that ambition mixed with impatience dissolves the former into dust particles of productive energy that never get a chance to become anything. That creative ideas generated to propel ambition are their own kind of fetus, in need of incubation as much as any other breathing organism to ultimately survive in the world.
As I return to real life with ideas pouring out of my ears. There’s no rush — it’s the clock of my own expectations against me.
Another thought I have been examining lately. Assuming my new work has to somehow relate to or exceed my old work, and measuring whether it has done this by the response it collects. But my commitment really, is to the work of expression, which is not the same as the outcome of the work. I have no control over that. All I can do is present ideas and emotions and give them life the best way I can.
Anyway, what have you been doing lately that is new or different? Does anyone ever ask you this? I love this question — it’s a good one to think about if you care enough to become more conscious of where you're at in your life and the value you place on experience. Are you in the flow, on repeat, in or out of step?
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