Category: people

Ambition burnout. It’s a weird combination of words implying that it is possible to burn-out from ambition. But it is real and something that I’ve personally experienced.

I’ve always been driven by ambition. As a child I wrote a list of things I wanted to achieve by the time I was 18. I completed the list well before my 18th birthday. I wrote another to achieve by the time I was 30. It included things like to live in a nice home, have a nice car, a great job, and to travel around the world. I completed it by age 29.I wrote a few more, which I achieved. Then I hit the aforementioned burn-out. I ran out of things that I wanted to achieve. So I idled. With no more drive or goals I coasted along. I embraced mindfulness, journalling, meditation, and long walks. They kept me sane but barely.

Those of us driven by ambition can feel a real sense of loss when we no longer have ambition to steer us forwards. We merely exist like everyone else. With no measurement of progress, no sense of achievement. Just being.

It can lead to depression, and bad health. Ambition burnout can leave you hollow. A loss of drive, no mojo, no spirit.

So what comes after ambition burnout?

We British love to moan. We assert that right as often as possible. When we are unhappy about something we want the world to know. We seek out friends that we know will listen to our woes. Misery loves company.

We share our misery. Wear it like a badge of honour. When we feel slighted, wronged, cheated in some way. Or when we seem deluged with problems, the world is out to get us. We become angry, frustrated, vexed, needing to vent. To find others of a similar countenance. Not happy with their current predicament. A friend in a dark place. An ear wishing to listen, half-heartedly in return for the same in return.

Misery loves company.

You forget that we are mortal, that our time on earth is not a given. We can all go at any time. We are lucky to have the time that we have.

And then they start dying.

Family members, both near and far, friends both close and distant. You suddenly realise that you are going to more funerals than weddings. Saying goodbyes.

But these goodbyes, though sad with sorrow, are sad for other reasons. They are going before you had a chance to say what you wanted to say, to tell them how you felt, that you appreciated the time you had, however little. To show them who you are and what you have achieved. To show them that you did it, you reached your goals, you did what you said you would.

But now it’s too late. They’re gone. There’s no do-over, no inserting another coin to continue. For them it’s over. Your interaction is no more. You cannot tell them anything.

It hits you like a wave. Not only are they gone but there is no more them. You can’t talk to them, ask them anything, getting the answers to unanswered questions. Game over. It was what it was. Their time has ended while yours continues. Your two timeline’s interactions are over. It was what it was and there is no retrospective.

If this is teaching me anything it’s that I should appreciate the time I have left and to make peace, seek closure, get answers, whatever, with those that are still here, while they are here. Eternity has no time for regrets.

I received a notification that a relative had died. I was told by text.

I hadn’t seen or heard from them in a long while. They’d moved away, lived their life, then apparently moved back into the area we all group in at some point without telling anyone. Not a million miles away, living their life. Then diagnosed with cancer a few months back. Terminal. Still no reaching out to anyone. Until it was too late. Now their son is going through their phone book notifying people, anyone, they once knew.

I wasn’t in the phone book, so I was notified second-hand, by text. By the way X has died. A follow-on text after an initial one asking a mundane question about something unrelated. With the death notification an afterthought, or received as one.

The departed was a part of my childhood up to my teens. A long time ago. The pain isn’t as raw as it would be with someone closer or who has spent a lot of time with you recently. Yet there is still pain, of loss, of sadness.

All those years, laughs, sadness, memories, brought to an end with a simple text message.