What If I Want Too Much?

on ambition + action

I am deeply interested in so many things. Invested even. The currency being my sense of self. I’m 99% sure I’ve always been like this, though I can’t speak much to the earliest years when I couldn’t speak much. Simply put, I am an ambitious person.

I remember discovering that ambition could be referred to negatively. By people, in articles, etc. Up until then, I saw it as, exclusively, a good thing, because my own ambition was something that I actually liked about myself, and liking anything about myself was rare for a really long time.

Ultimately, I made a conscious decision to consider it a good trait, in myself and in other people. Unless the goal your ambition burns towards has the potential to harm others I think that having any idea of your ideal personal success is necessary. But where ambition is a poured-out path of gasoline, action is required to strike a match and light it up so you can actually see it. One has little to no movement, or point, without the other. And it’s taken me a while to learn this.

As a kid I wanted to be a:

• fashion designer

• popstar

• songwriter

• photographer

• magazine editor (yes, I did know what this was)

• actress

• writer

• parisian

• youtuber

• florist

• professional moodboard-er

to name just a few.

In an early year at secondary school (high school), every class took part in an online career quiz. At that time, I already knew I wanted to be a performer of some sort—a singer most likely. Lo and behold that was not an option on the quiz and when I informed the teacher, I was told that wasn’t an option beyond the quiz either.

Younger me chose to ignore this¹ and I wouldn’t begin to question the practicality of my ambitions and dreams until the later years of school. I probably wrote off the quiz and the teacher as very boring. The most creative-leaning job I could formulate from that quiz was Tattooist—a lack of skill I would never want to inflict upon anyone.

In a new school, a couple years later, I took another careers quiz.² Equally questionable in its own limited breadth of ambition but this time I, at least, received Artist as a viable option. This particular quiz was obviously not means-testing its participants. Two quizzes down and no answers aligning to my own long-standing ambitions, I became very good at ignoring supposedly “useful” advice. And quiz results.

I still want to be a lot of the things on that list above, though some have fallen to the wayside, sacrificed for lack of a) money b) time c) freedom of movement post-brexit.³ But a few of them are still burning slowly forward.

Recently, I’ve felt a huge shift. Another one?, you ask. Yes. It appears that life is just endless shifting of different degrees and lessons. And until they stop I’ll probably continue to write about them. Whereas the others were about not knowing what you want and ways to figure it out, this one so far is more about how ignoring what you really (always) love to do won’t stop you from wanting it. It’s more complex than that single sentence but I’m trying not to get too caught up in my own unravellings.

This realisation has me running circles in my mind (and in my journal), wondering if I want too much, thinking I should narrow things down realistically and go for just one thing. That way it’ll be a quicker path, a gentler journey, a low-effort option. I’ll be perceived as one thing and it’ll be easy for everyone. In reality though, nothing is easy and quick. Not even a really good flat white, or a Brazilian wax, maybe a bullet train ride, but certainly not an ambition, goal or dream.

So I shut down the diminishing thought because why can’t I want a lot for my own life? Why not me? It’s not like I’m talking about wanting things, possessions, material items. Obviously the answer to that would be yes, you can want waaaay too much and we should all want a whole lot less stuff. That would be a much quicker read, which I’m sure you’d prefer.

I’ve spent a long time believing that the things I want to be are things I have to become. That a certain amount of time, money, knowledge, or contacts are required before being handed the official title of who you’ve always wanted to be. That I have to want it for a really long time; have it burn holes of passion in my gut lining for decades before announcing it to you, because only then is it really true and validated. It’s possible that this used to be the case in order to be seen in any professional capacity. I’m not so sure the structures that uphold such traditional acceptance really exist anymore.

So now is as good a time as any to decide that I am already all of those things. I can be as ambitious as I want but I also have to be proactive and prolific in believing it. I have to act accordingly. That’s when it’s real. You’ll create more luck just going for it than you will waiting for it to be given to you.

This is me telling you that I’m a writer. I’m a photographer. I’m a singer and a songwriter. I make stuff from feeling and I share it in the hopes that it connects. I am more than creating-related titles too of course, but these are what my ambition pertains to.

Whether you believe me or not, these things are true.

So who are you?

This is where I leave you, 2024, by me (digital)

damp, 2021, by me (35mm)

sands, 2021, by me (35mm)

lovers smoke, 2022, by me (35mm)

olhao palette, 2022, by me (35mm)

00s Gap denim, 2020, by me (35mm)

Lyn’s place, 2022, by me (35mm)

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Thanks for reading.

See you soon.

1. THANK GOODNESS

2. I didn’t, in fact, move school because of the disappointing quiz result but apparently this was a time when quizzes were fundamental to education.

3. EU, I miss you x