How we spend our time is also, at its most precious, how we create meaning. ― Rainesford Stauffer
On ambition, creating meaning, and leaving our signatures | All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive by Rainesford Stauffer
For the inaugural Words with Words post, I chose to cover a book I read in early November that I’m still fixating on. It’s one of those titles I borrowed from the library and instantly regretted because there is something to underline on every page1.
As the title denotes, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways we Strive is about ambition — ambition at work, in family life, within our communities, and around our sometimes elusive hobbies. The book in and of itself is ambitious, a narrative interwoven with dozens of stories of about ambition and the various angles it can take — many of which skew negative.
The underlying message is that ambition, if left unchecked, can lead those striving for achievement down a dark, lonely alley, thereby defeating its purpose to begin with.
What’s wrong with ambition?
Nothing is wrong with ambition, per se — except for when it drains you of everything, particularly regarding work. So many of us get caught up in the search for all the gold stars and pats on the back from our superiors, and as such, we too often forget to care for ourselves.
While chasing after success, the author’s own physical and mental health took a hit, as well as her relationships. It’s wild how we will pursue a “dream,” only to find out that not much really changes once we achieve it, and a lot of other areas in our lives may struggle in the interim.
As a person who has a hard time resting because I feel like I need to be working or writing or doing doing doing, this book caught my attention by the title alone. I say this about myself not to fluff my feathers but to air a grievance I have with my own personality.
The root of this feeling, I think, stems from something I read years ago — Annie Dillard’s famous quote in The Writing Life: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
I think about that quote every single day. As a mother, time moves in a way in which my brain cannot comprehend. I don’t want to look back at my life and think, wow, I’m so glad I spent so much time scrolling through social media. This quote sends that message home to me, and is likely why my ambition to do all the things has ramped up in the past six years.
But to what end?
A 26-year-old software engineer named Hailey is quoted saying something that stopped me in my tracks:
“The place where people get caught is when ambition becomes external. Somewhere along the line your goals become somebody else’s story.”
Ouch. My biggest ambition right now2 is signing with a literary agent. “Get an Agent” is written in the center of my 2023 vision board, which I see every time I open my computer. This goal, around which much of my life revolves, is leading me askew. It’s an external ambition that relies on others in order for it to happen.
I also learned that I have done what so many do: I’ve turned my hobby into a high-pressured, measurable outcome rather than something I do purely because it brings me joy.
Stauffer explains:
“We’ve put the onus of achieving a work-life balance on individuals, rather than making it a wider societal issue. In this paradigm, how we spend our time is inherently all about our choices, and hobbies are elevated to be a saving grace from the cyclic churn of work and less a source of pleasure and meaning.” — Rainesford Stauffer
If we devote our free time to our hobbies, but then turn our hobbies into a “saving grace” from work, is that time really free?
Consider this quote from Dr. Dawna Ballard about why it matters so much how we spend our time:
“Because it’s our tie to life and to other people. It’s our signature of what’s left here of us.”
— Dr. Dawna Ballard
I love that so much: the way we spend our time is the way we will leave our marks. It makes me question if I’m really spending my time the way I want to.3 Because if my time is my signature, what does it look like? Ambition is great and all, but not if it’s directed in the wrong place — like a goal at the mercy of someone else’s actions.
One more quote to tie all of this together, from James Clear’s recent email:
How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love."
— The Way to Love by Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello
The activities you do for love, for passion — not money, not to prove something to someone — are the tools with which you will leave your signature. What will yours look like? What will it say?
Have you read All The Gold Stars? It really put things into perspective for me and helped me calm down a little bit. (Though it also inspired me to finally launch Words on Words because of this quote, which is reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s above: “How we spend our time is also, at its most precious, how we create meaning.”)
I hope this newsletter will create some meaning, not only for myself, but for you, too. As this is brand new and I have yet to learn my readers’ preferences, I welcome any and all feedback!
What I’m reading: I finished Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang last night. WOW. I need to collect my thoughts before I say anything else about it.
Three Holidays and a Wedding by Marissa Stapley and Uzma Jalaluddin. I started this right after finishing Babel. I craved an intellectual break after that tome, and this holiday book is everything I needed!
The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood.
What I’m listening to: I’m on an audiobook pause and am catching up on The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast.
There are so many books I want to read before year’s end. They include: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, and The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush. I also have three more holiday books that Putnam generously sent me and I can’t wait to binge on.
What are you reading???
Love,
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You will soon learn I am an underliner and highlighter and dog-earer. The more I love a book, the more destroyed it looks.
My family comes first. Naturally. Here I’m referring to my biggest ambition outside of raising kind and healthy children.
I am obsessed with capitalizing on my time. I have been tracking my habits daily for four years (a post on this is forthcoming). So when I saw a book about ambition and how it might be leading me astray, I knew I had to read it.
Love this!!