Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ambition (Episode 127)
857 Plays8 months ago
“Show me a man who is not a slave; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition.”
– Seneca
In this conversation, Michael and Caleb discuss how Stoics think about ambition. What does healthy ambition look like? The unhealthy kind? How do you navigate between the two?
Caleb and Michael talk through the Stoic tradition’s answers to these questions.
***
Subscribe to The Stoa Letter for weekly meditations, actions, and links to the best Stoic resources: www.stoaletter.com/subscribe
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod
If you try the Stoa app and find it useful, but truly cannot afford it, email us and we'll set you up with a free account.
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Ambition and Stoicism
00:00:00
Speaker
It's robust. Like a lot of the inspirational things you see, it's kind of a motivational video. Somebody yells at you. There's a picture of a lion and you feel strong for a moment and then it goes away. But this kind of ambition that's founded on general, genuine conviction about this as being the best way to live. Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Trombley. And for this conversation, we're going to be talking about ambition.
00:00:29
Speaker
I mean, anybody who studied stoicism or started to practice this, I think has felt a typical kind of issue with ambition or effort.
The Conundrum of Stoic Ambition
00:00:44
Speaker
So I think one of two things starts to happen once you start learning more about stoicism, which is one is you either
00:00:51
Speaker
Don't question your ambition. You don't kind of question why you want the things you want. And then stoicism can become just a mechanism to help you achieve those things. We see that in kind of this, this, this idea of, you know, the kind of stoicism for business or something like this. It's the person is just adding tools like the dichotomy of control or premeditatio malorum onto what they already value.
00:01:17
Speaker
I think that's a bad thing, but another thing that's a bad thing that happens is people sometimes lose motivation. They lose ambition. They start to question, why did I want the things I wanted at all? Those things can stay seem temporary or vain or unimportant once I've started dedicating myself to a life of philosophy. So there's this fork in the road and you don't want to go down either path. And I want to see today if we can talk about how you might resolve it.
00:01:44
Speaker
and what a stoic ambition might look like. And I came across, when I was doing research for this episode, I came across a Reddit quote. It's just somebody who posted this in Reddit, I think maybe like around five years ago, just asking for help. But I think they did such a good job summarizing that this conundrum.
00:02:04
Speaker
And so this is from Sisyphaean Effort. And it's quite a long quote, but it's really well written and worth saying in full. And so they say, years ago, I came to stoicism in much of the same fashion as many of you. Introduced to the works of Marc Seralius, Seneca, and Epictetus.
00:02:21
Speaker
A lot of what I read resonated with me, but since then I have experienced what I describe as a distinct lack of ambition slash focus that I can trace back to my Stoic readings, the meditations in particular. So what is the problem? Well, my reading of the meditations has impressed a few things upon me that have had the net result of withering my worldly ambition down to nothing.
00:02:43
Speaker
Firstly, Marcus constantly references the ultimate folly of considering human things as great, given their insignificance at both time and scale when compared to the universe. I remember him specifically mocking Alexander the Great, as how could one be great when all they've done is conquered a bit of land on a celestial speck? If conquering most of the known world is a laughable endeavor, what can I possibly achieve of any note?
00:03:09
Speaker
Next is the general undercurrent of disdain I detect towards people who clamber over themselves for positions, titles, offices, and material things.
Reconciling Ambition with Stoic Principles
00:03:19
Speaker
So now in my work, all I see is people scheming, plotting, straining towards more titles, more positions, more money, and my perception has been skewed to see these things as inherently worthless.
00:03:30
Speaker
However, the organization expects you to prize these things and going contrary to these expectations does you no favors. So my question is, what have I got wrong here? Do all the stoics out there busting your tails, working overtime and flattering your bosses to gain position and money? How do you reconcile that with your stoic principles? So that's the end of the quote. I think that's just such a perfect, it's a perfect summary of what happens when we come to stoicism and we encounter, you know,
00:04:00
Speaker
one emperor Marcus Aurelius mocking Alexander the Great for his ambition being worthless and you say well what's the point of me you know working hard for that promotion in my job if Alexander the Great was a fool. But what do you think of that Caleb? Any thoughts on that quote?
00:04:19
Speaker
It's a great way of setting out the issues. I suppose you could say one way to sort of boil it down into those two points is just that one common step practice is the view from above. You see Marcus Aurelius doing that over and over again, might himself the scale of things.
00:04:37
Speaker
the temporary nature of things. One line that comes to mind is Alexander the Great and his donkey driver, his servant. They end up in the same place at the end. What's the point when it's so temporary? Is the mental move there? That's that one thought. And then, of course, there's that other
00:04:58
Speaker
strain, which is seeing the silliness of so much human competition, so much striving after externals. And, you know, there's that question that was put, well, how do you make sense of, you know, where's the value? What's
Redefining Ambition in a Stoic Context
00:05:14
Speaker
the worth? What's the point of all this? Which I think is one kind of risk, one obstacle many of us encounter. I mean, it must be a question you ask yourself, stoic or not.
00:05:27
Speaker
And then stoicism in some ways makes it worse because it gives you some of these tools or techniques perhaps that really force the question and there's some benefit, but also some challenge in that.
00:05:41
Speaker
Well, I think that's there in the, in the last part of this post, which is where he says to all you stoics out there, busting your tails, working overtime and flattering your bosses. How do you reconcile that with your stoic principles? I think there's almost a challenge there, right? Which is this idea of, cause there's two, there's two ways you could go. Um, you know, you, you could, you could take that view from above and say it's trivial or not important. And I shouldn't be doing this. You can lose motivation or there's that challenge where it's just like, are you really being stoic? If you're doing that, can you prove to me?
00:06:11
Speaker
Is there, is, can you still be stoic and work over time and flatter your boss or are you just pretending to be stoic? There's almost a challenge, um, there, you know, is that, is that reconciliation possible? And so I want to try to make the reconciliation possible. I want to do that because I think it's true. I think it's accurate. And I think that as we'll see for reasons, I think a life with ambition is better than a life without ambition. And, uh, so that's what, that's what we'll get into today.
00:06:39
Speaker
And so I wanted to start off first with just what is ambition? Because I think like any good philosophers, we need to start with definitions. We need to be very clear what we're talking about. So what is ambition? Well, one thing you could do is you could turn to the Stoics. And I did a quick Google search for Marcus Aurelius' inhibition, well, Stoicism inhibition. And I came up with this quote.
00:07:04
Speaker
where Marcus Aurelius seems to really criticize ambition. And this is Meditations, book six, chapter 51. And Marcus says, ambition means tying your well-being to what other people say or do. Self-indulgence means tying it to what happens to you. Sanity means tying it to your own actions.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I think you get this really clear criticism, it seems at least, of ambition. Ambition is caring about what other people think, or you're caring about the world of other people. Self-indulgence is caring about what happens to you, focusing on yourself. So ambition is focusing on others. Self-indulgence is focusing on yourself. And insanity, the correct
00:07:52
Speaker
route is focusing on, again, yourself, but just the things that are up to you. So I guess that self indulgence is the things that are not up to you, but yourself. And this seems like a pretty negative view on ambition, but it's also a good lesson about English translations. So I went to the Greek here.
00:08:09
Speaker
And the word being translated as ambition is philodoxos, which is Phil is the love. And then doxa is opinion. So it's the mean opinion loving. It's the philodoxos. I love opinion. So you get that Greek, the doxa, you get that other places like orthodox means you've got the right opinion. Heterodox means you've got the wrong opinion. So if you're the philodoxos, that's somebody who just, you know, you care what other people think.
00:08:39
Speaker
And the second word is Philedonos, which is to, so what he translates as self-indulgence is Philedonos. Hedon is pleasure. It's hedonism. So it's not self-indulgence, but it's a lover of pleasure.
00:08:55
Speaker
And when you re-translate that, it's people that love opinion tie their wellbeing to what other people say or do. People that love pleasure tie their wellbeing to the things that happen to them. And sanity means tying your wellbeing to your own actions. And that's an entirely, it's an entirely sensical quote, but it doesn't really talk about ambition or not what I think of as ambition. I think there's something else, cause I don't think of ambition as opinion loving.
Ambition, Identity, and Stoicism
00:09:24
Speaker
And I, so I went to the Oxford dictionary again on Google. I didn't have to pull it out. And it's a Oxford dictionary says ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve something. Typically something requiring determination or hard work. And to me, this is still stoic. So opinion loving, obviously that could never be stoic.
00:09:45
Speaker
But to desire to do something difficult, to desire to do something that requires hard work. If you think of ambition that way, then for me, stoic ambition is still totally on the table. And then there just becomes a good and bad kind of ambition, depending on what you desire. Does the thing that you desire that requires hard work, is that something worth doing or not? What do you think about that?
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a, well, one, it's a good lesson in translation. So that was a, I think that was really cool and useful to have you bring that out. I guess one point is, you know, we're talking about desire here. In the past, we've talked about epithetus and desire.
00:10:29
Speaker
Epictetus uses the term in a technical sense where desire is pretty close to what Marcus Aurelius is getting at with this quote. It's, you know, tinier well-being in a really deep way, telling your sense of happiness to something as opposed to what he might call strong desire in the usual English meaning would be a maybe a powerful inclination or something of that sort.
00:10:59
Speaker
which is one clarification, but maybe also sort of centers the question, you know, like how strong of a desire are we talking about? You know, some people who are exceptionally ambitious, they sort of, you know, they burn the boats. They want to succeed at any cost or at least nearly any cost as the extreme view or extreme position, I suppose.
00:11:28
Speaker
Whereas others might have a less powerful drive. So I guess there is that question that I think is interesting to explore.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, how much desire are we allowed? Because we talk about that all the time. That's that sort of thing. We talk about all the time about how we can care about things as stoics. But where does that where does that line get crossed?
00:11:59
Speaker
And where does it cross against, I guess from caring to ambition because what we're doing here, like, I mean, we're doing just a bit of like philosophy, right? Like there has to be a bit of just figuring out what ambition means. And what I was understanding you'd be saying, Caleb was.
00:12:17
Speaker
You know, yeah, I can want certain things. I can prefer certain things. That's definitely on the table, but how much can you desire those things? How far can you go while still being stoic? If those are those, if those things are not up to you is, is, is, is a crucial question here.
00:12:35
Speaker
Right. Right. Exactly. I think, I think we'll get into that, into that during this conversation. So, uh, I guess the one place, the main place to start or perhaps to move to is what's the, uh, what's the picture where, where things clearly go wrong? You know, where's the examples of strong desires that are mistakes are not the stoic cannot, uh, have in so far as they want to remain stoic. Yeah. Great. So I think so.
00:13:06
Speaker
We want to say that the stoic is allowed to want to do hard things. So then they need to want the right kind of thing for ambition to be good. If they want the wrong kind of thing, they desire the wrong kind of thing, then that ambition is bad, is an argument that I'm making.
00:13:28
Speaker
So what would bad ambition look like? And for me, bad ambition, I think, is when your desire gets tied up in external things.
00:13:40
Speaker
And not just, again, not just you want these external things. And I think the difference when we cross over into that unhealthy level of ambition. So not from just like, you know, I prefer to go a certain way. This is, this is something that I'm inclined towards, but actually ambition, I think is when your identity gets tied up into it.
00:13:59
Speaker
And that goes back to that Marcus Aurelius quote of when you tie your well-being to something. And I think we tie our well-being to something, and this is an Epictetus argument at least, we tie our well-being to something when we view it as being essential to us or a necessary part of us or our happiness. And so one of the decisions I want to make here is we can talk about
00:14:24
Speaker
desiring external things and without getting there. So I could say I desire a tasty treat. Um, I can desire to go to the movies. Um, and again, we can, we can parse that language demand and technical or being maybe that's an impulse, a strong inclination to do those things, but I would never not say I have an ambition for those things.
00:14:43
Speaker
But we can have an ambition to become a famous actor, to become a successful business person, to be popular. We have ambition, I think, when we strive to become something, or at least that's one type of ambition or one type of way that our desire becomes ambition in a way that's dangerous. So we want to become something, not just have something.
00:15:10
Speaker
Because I come back to this identity argument a lot, but I think when you tie your identity up in something, then your happiness necessarily follows. It's kind of this teleological argument. I am this kind of thing, so if I do well, I'm this kind of person, I'm a business person.
00:15:31
Speaker
So if my business goes, well, I'm a good person. If my business goes poorly, I'm a bad person because I am a business person. It's like when you associate with your identity, you tie it into kind of your purpose, your function, your end. And that's when I think ambition or this desire for external things turns into that bad kind of ambition.
00:15:53
Speaker
And I'll try to make the argument here that the Stoics think the same thing. I'll start with one quote from Epictetus of an example of this, at least as one kind of bad ambition. And so Epictetus here says, quote,
00:16:05
Speaker
The following assertions don't form a coherent argument. I'm richer than you, therefore I'm better than you. Or, I'm more eloquent than you, therefore I'm better than you. No, it is these that make a coherent argument. I'm richer than you, therefore my possessions are superior to yours. Or, I'm more eloquent than you, therefore my way of speaking is superior to yours. But you yourself are neither your possessions nor your way of speaking.
00:16:33
Speaker
And that's Epictetus's point about how, again, our identity is our prohyruses, our capacity for choosing our character. It's not our possessions. It's not our, you know, how verbose we are, how kind of intellectually impressive we are.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I think Epictetus there was pointing at this tendency for people to make that jump, make that jump from thinking, well, I'm rich, therefore I have more than you.
Roles and Ambition in Stoicism
00:17:02
Speaker
That's totally fine. I have more money than you. That's what that means to I'm rich, therefore I'm better than you. And he's trying to shut down that kind of thinking in people. And I think that's the kind of thinking that is the dangerous, that is when your ambition becomes dangerous, when your ambition becomes unstoic. What do you think, Caleb?
00:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because if you think about there are some identities that you take when you perform roles that are in general
00:17:36
Speaker
good things for the stomachs. If you want to be, maybe you don't want to be a famous actor, but you want to be an excellent actor, and that's the role that has to do with your vocation. And most people, it's very important for them to be good at their vocation. So then, I suppose there's that question, where does that
00:18:02
Speaker
Where does the object of ambition turn into something less than ideal, is it with? Or is it not so much the object wanting to be an excellent actor, but the level of desire that comes with that ambition in certain cases where, you know, of course it's important to be good at your job, but you shouldn't trade that off against some other roles you have, some other virtues by any means.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. Okay. I mean, I think it can be two at the same time. So one point, it's kind of boring, but it's just always the case. You know, I didn't write, when I was thinking about this before, I didn't write good actor. I wrote famous actor. And I think that because it's implicitly the famous actor is something that's not up to you, right? Where the good actor is presumably more up to you. It's about mastering your craft. Whereas the famous actor is about achieving kind of a social status or position.
00:19:01
Speaker
that is correlated with, but not caused by your skill as an actor. So I think there's something there about, it's the really simple Stoic, Evictetus line of, is it up to you or is it not? Good actor is up to you, famous actor is not. And I think you make a good point about, you know, is there something to be said about ambition, bad ambition being actually the, not taking on that role. There's nothing wrong with taking on the role of wanting to be a famous actor, but it's when that role
00:19:28
Speaker
Because when we talked about this a lot, in role ethics, there's a kind of a hierarchy of roles. So you have your role as a human being.
00:19:38
Speaker
And then you have some rules that you've, uh, born into, you know, maybe you're a son or a daughter, and then you have rules that you acquire or choose to take on. Like you, you want to be an actor, for example. Um, and maybe ambition is when this order gets mixed up a bit. So insofar as the good actor doesn't compromise with being.
00:20:01
Speaker
the good son or good, you know, father or mother, then it's fine or a good person. But once the order starts to get mixed up a bit, then you've crossed the line. That's what, is that, is that what you were saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I suppose you've made the.
00:20:18
Speaker
you've become too attached to your identity and forgotten that there is a hierarchy between these different roles. Yeah, so that's great. That's one way in which ambition goes awry. Maybe you start with a fine ambition to be an excellent actor, but then become too attached to those things that correlate with being an excellent actor, those proxies, whether that's fame or riches or pleasure that it comes along with.
00:20:46
Speaker
You know, it's evidence that you're a good actor, of course, that you're socially rewarded, but it's just that. It's not what you're ultimately seeking.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we can see that in media representations of ambition or just plays about in representations of ambition. There's that kind of trope in films of the person who starts off at the bottom and raises and kind of has that fall from grace or that kind of Icarus moment. And I think we treat it as a tragedy, but we don't look up to the people
00:21:19
Speaker
who become attached to those proxies, the actor who becomes in love with being famous. And that causes them to kind of burn the bridges with their relationships, causes them to not be as good of a family member as they could have been. Maybe we have sympathy and look at it as a tragedy, we don't admire it. But then I think of somebody like the painter
00:21:41
Speaker
Or, you know, the tortured artist paradigm, where this person never becomes attached to the external thing, always stays attached to the craft. But in being just subsumed by that actually kind of becomes, still gives up their other rules.
00:21:58
Speaker
I think in that, I'm kind of going, going off the notes here, but I think in that example, it's almost like the cynic calling. Like Epictetus talks about how, you know, we're not all cut out to be cynics, but some people are because it's kind of all encompassing. And that's what the cynic is raised. The cynic is somebody who.
00:22:16
Speaker
prioritizes the role of philosopher over family, over politics, over social. They actually have this singular role that subsumes the others. And I think we're a lot more sympathetic when that happens in other domains.
00:22:33
Speaker
again, like the tortured artist, the painter, if that person is attached to what's up to them, if they've given up the other rules, if they've messed up their role hierarchy, but they're focused on what's up to them, which is like becoming the best at their craft and they love their craft, I think we're more sympathetic to that kind of paradigm. Do you share that intuition? Yeah, that's interesting. I think that connection to cynicism is a good one. It does seem like there are some people who
00:23:03
Speaker
violate ordinary common sense ethics. They don't follow through with some of their roles, but because they're so competent or so good at some other thing that truly is valuable, it's difficult to say that they should have lived their life in
Ambition Aligned with Societal Good
00:23:23
Speaker
another manner. Like I suppose in some sense, of course, one should always be striving for
00:23:34
Speaker
virtue and the fact that people like to say that in the artist's example they fail in their familial obligations because they're so obsessed with their with their work. There's of course a sense of which it is true that they should have been uh better father mother and so on but one standing up making that claim doesn't seem certainly doesn't seem as strong and I think um it's almost like too utopian
00:24:04
Speaker
Well, it almost feels, I'm not sure if that's right. I'm not sure if I believe that, if I believe that, but it may be wanting, oh, yeah, maybe it is too utopian. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that's right. Yeah. Well, it makes me feel like, you know, everybody could always be better, right? So like, why can't you be this amazing artist and also, you know, nice to your kids? Like it's like, clearly that would be better, but we almost like forgive or excuse that when, as you said, it's, it's valuable to the world.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, maybe that's the part that I'm missing is that it's valuable to the world. Not that it's the craft, it's that the craft is valuable to the world because we also excuse people who are like that if they're trying to like cure cancer or something. And that's not in their control. That's clearly not up to them, but we still like, because it's like ultimately helpful and beneficial, we kind of excuse that kind of ambition. And now, I mean, and now let's turn to, I have another Seneca, I have a Seneca quote here that I think
00:25:04
Speaker
We've just, I think, in the moment come up with this idea of ambition. I mean, look, if you have ambition to be something that's bad, that's just bad. But even ambition for something that's good or worthwhile can be wrong if you start to pervert your role, or not pervert, is not the right word, but I guess distort the importance of that in relation to your other roles. You start forgetting to do your other relationships, the other things you have in your life. And I think the Seneca quote speaks to that.
00:25:32
Speaker
So Seneca says, quote, they're lying those people who wanted to look as if the pressures of their job prevent them from engaging in liberal studies. It is all pretense, for they themselves keep adding to their activities. If they're busy, it's their own fault. I have time, Achilles. I do have time. And wherever I am, I am my own person. I do not give myself over to activities. I only lend myself.
00:26:00
Speaker
And I mean, Seneca, by all accounts, is a very, very successful person. And so there's this interesting idea there of, and I'm sure he had a fair deal of ambition. And so assuming he's not lying or playing the character, it's interesting to see what he talks about. Like, I just lend myself to these activities, right? I don't lose myself in them. My identity does not become one-to-one correspondence with them, nor do
00:26:26
Speaker
uh you know the pressures of my job start to overtake my other roles uh i lend a certain period of my time to those things but i keep uh i keep myself intact uh and you can think of that either through the identity argument i was making earlier or that as the kind of the other roles you have to play the other parts of yourself yeah i sort of interpret that as saying these are people who
00:26:54
Speaker
either who overvalue some of their other roles at the expense of doing philosophy. And not philosophy in the academic sense, but philosophy of life and cultivating themselves.
00:27:12
Speaker
and making that explicit choice. If they are busy, it's their own fault to prioritize their office or other pursuits. Is that how you write it as well? Yeah, I do. But I guess in stoicism,
00:27:31
Speaker
Like if you're not a stoic, you could say there's certain kinds of people. This person's a philosopher. This person is a business person. This person is, uh, you know, they're, they're heating this. They just like pleasure, but the stoic is going to say, no, no, no, we're all the same kind of people. Right. And so if you say, I don't have time to study philosophy, I'm too busy. Your.
00:27:53
Speaker
I mean, you're wrong and you're neglecting a part of yourself that's more important than the part of yourself that you're prioritizing. Objectively, the stokes would say that not just different strokes for different folks, but like your, your, your ambition to succeeding business is harming your, your life because you're acting like you don't have time to do something, which is more important than your business ambition.
Historical Context of Stoic Ambition
00:28:19
Speaker
So yeah, I read it the same way, but I guess I had that extra follow through. Yeah, yeah. No, that's a great point. Yeah, that's what I'll add. So I think what we come out of there is two types of bad ambition or a similar way that ambition becomes bad, which is that
00:28:42
Speaker
Well, look, you want to be able to desire things. You want to be able to do things in the world, but if you desire them at the extent of, I guess, being a well-rounded person, and in a stoic sense, being a well-rounded person means understanding your roles, your multiple roles, both as a rational being who should be caring about your character, who should be caring about, you know, how kind you are, courageous you are, how just you are. If it comes, if, if, if your role of,
00:29:10
Speaker
Salesperson, entrepreneur, web athlete, artist, if that starts actually subsuming that and taking priority over that role as a human being who's developing their character, well then that's a negative type of ambition. That's a bad type of ambition.
00:29:28
Speaker
And that's even not even considering the kinds of cases. Well, I mean, they would all just be more extreme cases of that kind of cases where you, you're actually just ambitious for a bad thing. And it makes you do bad things. I think the stoic would say, well, look, if you were leading as a good person first, you wouldn't even, even picked that thing as the, as the. The thing to be, to, to have ambition for your own, you've only picked it as the thing you desire because you've lost yourself along the way.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah. The point about losing yourself, I think is key. Seneca has a line about the Roman Marius, which is Marius commanded armies, ambition Marius, which suggests that, you know, he had one when people, when they do become exceptionally ambitious can lose that sense of who they are.
00:30:24
Speaker
and are driven by some other force rather than themself. Yeah, so don't do that. Yeah, don't do that. That's bad.
00:30:36
Speaker
Well, one other point on this front is that, that I think is useful to remember when you're reading, especially Seneca and Marcus Aurelius on ambition, is that the two of them were surrounded by the, maybe like the top 1% of people in the Roman Empire who were ambitious. Like literally the most ambitious people in the world would be the people who Seneca and Marcus Aurelius would be interacting with.
00:31:05
Speaker
on a daily basis. Generals, high-ranking politicians, aristocrats, and so on who were looking to advance their station. So both in their personal lives, especially with Seneca, and in the lives of people who they would personally know, they would be very closely acquainted with the failures of ambition and
00:31:35
Speaker
probably have less of a sense of people who are not that ambitious, except for maybe there's some sense in which Nero could, I guess, be read as filtering this bill. But I think that's important to keep in mind. Why do they hammer on ambition so much and maybe not people who lack drive because they see people who
00:31:59
Speaker
Uh, do terrible things, make terrible mistakes because of possessing too much ambition, perhaps.
Personal Growth and Stoic Virtues
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah. I love that point. It's always like a not too hot, not too cold kind of thing. Right. So it's like, yeah, when you're surrounded by.
00:32:14
Speaker
Like, you know, you're in the NFL and you're surrounded by people who have based their life around football. And you're like, hey, there's more to life than football. And like, you know, you start saying these things, hey, you know, you don't have to, maybe you could take a day off. Maybe you could relax a bit. This is much different advice depending on who you're talking. Some people don't need to relax. Some people don't need to take a day off. Some people need a bit of a, you know, a bit of a kick of motivation. But yeah, when you're in the court and you're seeing
00:32:43
Speaker
A, the most ambitious people in the world, and then B, the people who are suffering because of that. And you're seeing all the vices that come with that. That's a really great point. And it makes me think of, well, it just makes me go back to Epictetus's line again, because Epictetus is tutoring these really privileged, rich young men, right? And so he's like, hey,
00:33:03
Speaker
It's not a good argument. When you say I'm richer than you, therefore I'm better than you. That doesn't make any sense. Don't think that way. Oh, I'm more eloquent than you, therefore I'm better than you. Don't think that way. And he's talking to these privileged 17-year-olds who are walking around being like, well, I was educated from a young age, so I'm better than all the other people in this town. And he's kind of just pointing out how dumb that is and how that's not the right way to think about yourself and think about your self-development. So there's always that kind of audience in mind.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Good callback. All right. So let's move to move to, um, the good form of ambition.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, cool. So what is good ambition? Um, I don't want to think, I don't want us to think coming out of that. It's like, so system encourages passivity. I don't think it does. So, uh, a good stoic life, it's not one without ambition. It's one where your ambition is. Correctly. I guess has the correct target, I would argue.
00:34:03
Speaker
And so that correct target, obviously, the thing that you should have the most ambition towards, again, defining ambition as the thing that is difficult, wanting to do something that is difficult to do, wanting to do something that requires determination. The primary object of your ambition
00:34:20
Speaker
should always be your character, but it's okay to strive for that character and development with as much ambition as anything else. And so here's a quote from Epictetus that I really like that shows, I think, the importance of ambition. Epictetus says, how much longer will you delay before you think yourself worthy of what is best and transgress in nothing the distinctions that reason imposes?
00:34:44
Speaker
And if you come up against anything that requires an effort, or is pleasant, or glorious or inglorious, remember that this is the time of the contest that the Olympic Games have now arrived. And even if you're not yet a Socrates, you ought to live like someone who in fact wishes to be a Socrates.
00:35:01
Speaker
And so this is a full endorsement of ambition, right? This is this is Evictita saying you should treat your life like you're preparing for the Olympic Games. You should aim to become Olympic champion. You should even if you can't be Socrates, you should have the ambition to be Socrates. It's 100% endorsement of ambition. It's just ambition turned inward. It's ambition towards the development of our character.
00:35:23
Speaker
And I really like that. I really like that kind of role hierarchy idea we came up with earlier, right? And it's this idea of first things first, have that ambition towards being a good person. That's ambition number one.
00:35:39
Speaker
And it's not easy come, easy go. It's not, you know, whatever happens, happens. Don't worry about it. Don't try hard. It is try hard. This matters. This moment, you know, when somebody insults you, when you have a chance to be kind to somebody, when you have a chance to show courage and
00:36:00
Speaker
discipline, this moment matters as much as the Olympic games. You should have that degree of ambition, motivation, drive. It should just be directed inwards. It should be directed at your character and at your self development. So that's point one. And for me, I think that's like, that's 90% of it. Good ambition just means shrinking what you're ambitious about away from the external and towards the internal.
00:36:23
Speaker
But, and then, uh, the, the other thing I would add though, I think, I think we nailed something today, Caleb, where we came up with something that's good, which is that really, as long as your other ambitions, as long as your desires to do difficult, hard things, do not interfere with this primary ambition.
Aligning Ambition with Professional Roles
00:36:43
Speaker
I think it is a fair game. So I think as long as you retain that hierarchy.
00:36:50
Speaker
then there's still a fair game to have ambition. I think of myself in my own professional work. I care about my job. I want to do a good job, but I shouldn't want to do a good job at work more than I want to be a good person. Now I've messed up that kind of hierarchy of rules. And second, if there's ever a conflict between doing good at my job and being a good person, I should pick my character. I should prioritize that.
00:37:19
Speaker
But insofar as those two things are achieved, there's no real issue about taking a passion in your work. And I think back, if we pull it all the way back to the first quote,
00:37:37
Speaker
where that Reddit poster, you know, not to, not to put too much pressure on them. They were making a post a couple of years ago, but they're talking about, you know, seeing, I know I go to work and I see people doing futile tasks, crawling over themselves, clamoring to suck up to the boss. I think you want to have ambition because, because your professional life. So some teachers is that it's not.
00:38:04
Speaker
necessarily important. It's not the kind of thing you should ever compromise your character for and you have important meaningful things even if your professional life is going poorly. I think sometimes people might find themselves in professional environments or environments where they're surrounded by ambitious people that are just things they don't like to do.
00:38:23
Speaker
or just things they don't care about and if you don't genuinely like to do something or you don't genuinely think that it's important well then seeing other people trying really hard at it or seeing other people playing the game or having a lot of ambitions in that area is always going to come off a bit gross it's always going to come off a bit weird if misguided so i think there's also something to be said there which is like look obviously prioritize yourself
00:38:51
Speaker
Don't ever compromise your character for your professional artistic ambitions. But if you don't like what you do, if you haven't picked a role for yourself that matches your inclination, your talents, the things that you like to do, well, then your ambition in that area isn't going to be fun either. But if you do have that, if you do find a job you like, a sport, a hobby,
00:39:19
Speaker
passion. Well, then I think your ambition is going to come quite easily, quite naturally. It's going to be quite pleasurable. It's going to produce a good thing, which is going to be a skill and maybe something good for other people. And there's no real conflict or issue there as long as it doesn't ever trump that primary goal or that primary ambition of character development. Yeah, I thought that was really well put. I think
00:39:47
Speaker
It's clear that ambition matters for Stoics and the primary desire in that, in that full sense is to invest in being an excellent person. That that's where.
00:40:05
Speaker
in a real sense one's happiness lies for the Stoics. And then there's that question, how does that express itself? What does that look like in different lives? And whatever it is, it's doing your best in your relationships, career projects, what have you. And I think that can
00:40:29
Speaker
really support healthy, ambitious, ambitious lives where people live skillfully, acting in truly impressive and admirable ways. So yeah, I think it was an inspiring reminder, really.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, so again, not too hot, not too cold, a kind of Goldilocks approach. You can't go too hot with trying to be a better person, the Stoics would say, as long as you're doing it in the right way, you can be misguided, you can confuse, you can get confused.
00:41:05
Speaker
But insofar as that you can never be too ambitious there. And then when does it become too ambitious in the other areas? Well, when it starts to conflict with your other rules, it starts to consume your identity to the expense of those other rules. And most importantly,
00:41:27
Speaker
that, that role of being a good person, because that's when the Stoics, we gave that torture artist example. Maybe you can be a bad parent. Maybe you can be a bad citizen, but I mean, it would be hard to be these things and not a bad person, but if you really become vicious, cruel, you know,
00:41:45
Speaker
If you really become a bad person, then it doesn't matter on the stoic account. It doesn't matter how good your art was or how much money you made. That I think is something we don't talk about. We talk about, you know, if you're a good person, it doesn't matter if you're poor, if you're on the torture rack. But the flip side to stoicism is that if you're a bad person, not only subjectively, will you be unhappy if you achieve your ambition, if you achieve that success.
00:42:13
Speaker
That's why you're a tortured artist in that example. But not only will you be unhappy doing achieving your ambition, but we also as people should judge you as a bad person should say that was a bad life. Even if you achieved your ambition, even if you were an excellent athlete artist, uh, you, you invented something, you started up a, uh, you, you know, you cured a disease. You started up a business, which is weird to say, but I think that's the flip side of the equation too.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's really a good reminder, at least for me, that as a philosophical program, Stoicism is ambitious. It's saying do your best in every endeavor you have, be an excellent person, and make sure you select the right roles and perform in those to the best degree that you can as well. And I think on one hand, that's an impossibly high standard.
00:43:12
Speaker
And on the other, it's something inspiring to shoot for. And it's worth remembering that stoicism is always asking to perfect what's in your control. So in that sense, investing in externals, other markers of success and whatever pursuit you're engaged in is a mistake. You're just called to do your best. That's ultimately what matters.
00:43:39
Speaker
Let a fortune occur as as as it does. Yeah, I'm also feeling pumped up. I think because I think it's inspiring because it's like it's it's kind of robust, like a lot of the inspirational things you see, it's kind of a motivational video. Somebody yells at you. There's a picture of a lion and you know, you feel strong for a moment and then it kind of goes away. But this kind of ambition that's that's founded on.
00:44:07
Speaker
genuine conviction about this as being the best way to live and a kind of a system for being able to give yourself to something without losing yourself, which is give yourself as much as you can without compromising your other roles. That's something it just it feels.
00:44:26
Speaker
feels like I said, robust, but it's the kind of thing that can stand up to the test. It's the kind of thing that you can base a life around, uh, around in a good life. So yeah, we're both feeling motivated. Um, at least I am, which is great. That's it. That's good for something that started off very anti-ambition.
00:44:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I think it could be useful to go back to the quote, and I think there are those two concerns, one around watching other people scheming, plotting, straining, and sort of that human competition. The other was around this view from above type reasoning. Why have ambition at all if things will be wiped away?
00:45:11
Speaker
in the end if our concerns are so small. And I think we've adequately addressed that first one I just mentioned. But what do you think about the view from above? If you have any thoughts on
Stoic Exercises for Balancing Ambition
00:45:22
Speaker
that you want to add? Well, the view from above for me is, you know, the Stoics never, the Stoics, we want to
00:45:31
Speaker
We want to understand what's true. As humans, we have an inclination to distort what's true. So we have to introduce these cognitive exercises to pull our perception back towards the truth. And so again, that hot and cold, it's like if the water is boiling, we got to pour some cold water in so we get room temperature. We don't want freezing water. We just pour some cold water in to get it to room temperature. And so we all have a tendency to take our to be more dramatic than we need to be.
00:45:57
Speaker
We have a tendency to take things more seriously than they need to be. And I just always see the view from above as a mechanism of getting the correct amount of perspective. The room temperature water in this stretched out metaphor. You know, we don't do this exercise.
00:46:12
Speaker
You could think of somebody who's depressed, somebody who's apathetic, and you might think of the opposite thing. You might grab them and shake them and be like, this is the only life you have. This moment matters. What you do affects the people directly around you. You might do the opposite to pull their attention into the moment.
00:46:36
Speaker
I see the view from above as you said, Marcus Aurelius is like, he's in Roman court. He's everybody of the most ambitious people in the world. Everybody thinks the thing they're doing is the most important thing that could possibly be done. That water is really hot. He's got to cool it down a bit. That's not necessarily the way you need to feel when you're like coming home to your family.
00:47:02
Speaker
That's not necessarily the way you need to feel when you go and you do your job and you provide a service that matters to people. You don't need to feel well, these people will all be dead in a hundred years. That's not necessarily the right tool for that moment. You know, so that's, that's the way I feel about it. I think it's a, I think it's a good perspective for those that are too caught up. I think it's a bad perspective for those who aren't ambitious enough.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think that's well put. In our practice, we have the reminder to let, when you take the view from above, let the important remain and let the trivial fall away. So I suppose when you're doing this practice, it's key to have insight
00:47:47
Speaker
what is concretely important in your life, you know, those relationships, your character decisions, and so on. And then, you know, with that insight, you can maybe zoom out some.
Meaningful Pursuits and Core Values
00:48:01
Speaker
But if you're, if you're starting from a more nihilistic perspective, someone who's more depressed, you, the, the shifting your perspective, when you can't see what's in front of you to begin with is not a, may not be helpful.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I think. What about you? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think, yeah, I mean, it might not be, if you're, if you're struggling from this sort of more nihilistic perspective might not be the most useful reminder of what we just said, but I hope some of those earlier, earlier thoughts about ambition and lines from Epictetus and so on, we're motivating. Yeah. And I think there's something to be said for.
00:48:43
Speaker
we had on this earlier, but stoicism does want you to choose your roles, right? So what you're doing should be meaningful to you in some capacity. So maybe it's meaningful to you as a parent, you know, you don't really like your job, but there is some sort of meaning in providing for your family. Um, or maybe, or maybe you do like your job and the meaning should be in the job itself. But I think if you find yourself in kind of an apathetic position,
00:49:13
Speaker
You want to kind of take that as evidence that maybe there's not a right
00:49:19
Speaker
One reason that could be happening is there's not a right fit between who you are and what you're doing, right? And Stoicism teaches us a lot to kind of push through our perceptions of what we should be doing, our perceptions of the right way, societal, like conceptions of the right way to live. And this is vague. We don't know anything about this person, but I think that's something to be said to. I generally tend to think, and maybe disagree, Caleb, but like,
00:49:45
Speaker
You know, I taught kids for a long time and the, the, the, the kids will learn if they're engaged, they're engaged if they find it meaningful. So, so it's that question of like, how do you find, how do you make what you're doing meaningful and then not letting yourself feel that ambition that comes with that, you know?
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:50:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's useful. I suppose you can break it down further and ask, like, what's the source of meaning? Some people, their source, they might be looking for an activity that feels meaningful because it brings some amount of social status or social approbation. And then maybe in that case,
00:50:29
Speaker
you might question that initial judgment. But in other cases, you might just get meaning from making daily progress. I think sometimes you see, I've seen in my life, if you feel like you're not making any progress day to day, even in relatively mundane jobs or tasks, that can sort of suck away the meaning from whatever you're doing, if you feel like you're not improving.
00:50:56
Speaker
That brings up the question, does that mean you need to completely think about a different project or have you again speaking at these broad levels or does that just mean you need to try something else, same project, a different tactic? It's always hard to say at these levels.
00:51:15
Speaker
Maybe we should do another episode. We should do one on apathy maybe. Or nihilism. Or kind of, you know, take some time to think about how to confront that problem if that's the problem that's occurring. Not too much desire, but too little. Not too much ambition, but too little. Yep. Yeah, that's a good idea. Cole, do you have anything else on this one? No, that's it for me. Anything to add? No, I think I'm good as well. Awesome. Thanks for putting this one together. This was fun. Thanks, Caleb.
00:51:46
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more.
00:52:05
Speaker
Stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyer.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.