It is written: I want to become stronger.
This advice — to become stronger in some way, somehow — has defined most of my life. Sometimes for good, and sometimes for ill. This post is attempting to categorize the differences between the times when ambition is good and the times when ambition is bad. It's written as advice to my past self that might have saved a good deal of trouble.
Epistemic status: Still working on recovery from a particularly costly error some five years ago. Set your expectations accordingly. "You" here is me, and thus may not be you.
Good Ambition: Green Growing Things
Good ambition is characterized by an awareness of one's resources and capacities. It allows significant time for rest and recuperation. It encourages you to try things simply because they bring you joy, because it understands that your mood is a weapon and a resource to carry you forward. If you feel continuously awful, you are probably not doing things right. See Pain Is Not The Unit Of Effort.
Good ambition is characterized by an awareness of one's own desires. Expending large amounts of resources in pursuit of a goal set by others that you don't feel personally invested in is usually a bad sign. Similarly, keep strong awareness of what you'll actually do if you accomplish your goal — are you willing to write your fantasy novel in accordance with the latest marketplace trends? Are you able to actually show up to all the official functions that your shiny new moderation position is required to perform? If thinking about the details of the day to day operation of what you're aiming for fills you with dread, don't do it.
Good ambition does sometimes require you to weather difficulty. Usually this is because circumstances are awful for a reason unrelated to you, but there is something difficult you can do to reduce the impact of the bad circumstances on yourself or people you care about. Coming out as trans was worth it even though it was painful. Similarly, writing stories about your hurts and trauma got you through a lot, even though they had painful parts. Being firm with yourself to continue getting out of bed and functioning through your recovery from psychosis was worth it. Being present through your wife's suicidal crises and clinging on to her firmly was absolutely worth it, too. Notice that in all these cases, you're acting to reduce the impact of something painful that nonetheless must be faced.
Good ambition seeks to shelter existing utility or else create more. It seeks to make your life more full and fulfilling. It also understands that your resources are limited and doesn't call excessively on them except where the need is proportionately important.
Bad Ambition: Forgeworthiness
Bad ambition is disproportionate. It calls on more resources than the task at hand really deserves. It's using a rocket launcher to blow up a molehill. It demands more resources when you put resources into it, with no end in sight. It demands that you suffer even when there's no great pain being guarded from.
Bad ambition loses track of your own utility and joy. It pursues Goodharted metrics or the goals of other people that have become incorporated into you through social pressure. It's the degree you're not really interested in but you feel obligated to do or the writing project that doesn't engage you but that you polish extensively.
Bad ambition is subtractive. It emphasizes your flaws as things wrong with you that have to be overcome or removed from you, that if you put yourself into a crucible you'll emerge refined by the experience. It's the belief that if you put yourself through enough suffering you'll finally prove you're a good person, a good child, a good student, or a good worker. It's hungry; it's never sated, even when you feed it hour upon hour of your time. It steals you away from people you love and gives little back in return.
Bad ambition promises that you'll prove something to someone else — that you'll be able to crow about an accomplishment, be praised for good work, or stick it to someone who said you couldn't accomplish it. Often the person you're trying to prove it to or get praise from is at best neutral to the project, or in worse situations, actively the kind of person you shouldn't be trying to get the approval of. Often you yourself are your own harshest critic, demanding work done to perfectionist standards to shut up old voices of doubt or dissent from your goals.
Bad ambition states are often marked by work with unclear linkages to the ostensible end goal, or the deliberate avoidance of a subject area that’s essential to the functioning of the ostensible goal. It’s “working on writing commercially” that never researches the writers’ markets or how to get published, or “working on a degree” that ends with you disinterested and bored in class (or even not showing up at all!) In general, you have a strong work ethic when you’re engaged with things you actually care about, and when that goal is not accessible your work ethic suffers.
Bad ambition leaves you feeling hollow when you pursue it. It occupies time, but empties your life of value. It fails to give you any useful utility.
Distinguishing Between the Two
If it asks you to suffer but there's no pressing crisis, it's almost always bad ambition. Similarly, if you want to prove something to someone else, that's usually a bad sign.
If you feel joy or excitement at the idea of doing it, it's probably good ambition. Be careful to distinguish this from a more general feeling of pressure to do the thing, though.
If you feel an awareness of what other people want from you sort of pressing on you when you consider the goal, be cautious and think it through slowly. Take an actual fifteen minutes by the clock, or even more time than that. Sort through your wants in more detail, and think about their implications.
Having something to prove to yourself is often risky territory. If the doubts you’re experiencing were originally external to you, you should examine and dissect your motivations quite carefully, doing your best to determine who you’re doing the task for. If the answer is “for somebody else I don’t even like”, it probably isn’t a good idea. However, self-imposed challenges that you actively enjoy can bring you new levels of confidence and skill, so this territory should not be shunned completely. Playing in hard mode is not a whole antidote to Goodhart's law, but it does noticeably help.
Lack of Good Ambition: A Shrinking World
A lack of good ambition looks like a gradual loss of space in your comfort zone, as things you once found engaging and fun become difficult and scary. Some degree of continual self-maintenance and deliberate personal boundary pushing is necessary to maintain your social sphere and variety of activities, and when you fail to do proper maintenance your capacities slowly corrode. This can happen simultaneously with the pursuit of bad ambition, as the work you do overdraws your resources, or it can be the result of an overall withdrawal from ambition as a concept.
Often this will manifest as getting stuck in a rut, doing the same activity day in and day out despite dissatisfaction with the activity itself. The activity itself may be relatively benign, or may be a Goodharted time suck. Often this may be the result of replacing a hard problem with an easier problem or “approved” symbolic signifier of the goal — e.g, “I want to be as good a writer as Terry Pratchett” becomes “I want to Get Published”, “I want to connect deeply with my girlfriends and friends” becomes “I want to spend lots of time on my girlfriends and friends”, “I want to Get Published” becomes “I want to write a lot of fiction as measured by wordcount”, etc. See replace the symbol with the substance.
Conclusions