The Case Against Ambition

2 points · November 2026

I do not mean the case against trying. I mean the case against the word, and the thing the word has become, which is a way of being restless that has been given a good name.

Ambition, as it is now used, means wanting the next thing. Not a particular next thing — that would be a goal, and a goal can be reached — but the next thing in general, whatever it is, always. The ambitious person is defined by not being where they are. We admire this. We put it on job adverts.

What it costs is the present, which is the only place anything ever actually happens. The ambitious person is always in a waiting room. The work they are doing now is a means; the work they will do later is the end; and when later comes it turns out to be another means, because the ambition has moved on ahead like a dog on a walk.

I am not against wanting things. I am against wanting next as a way of life, and against the language that makes it sound like a virtue. Call it what it is. Restlessness. Then decide whether you want to be restless, which is a real question, rather than whether you want to be ambitious, which is not, because nobody is allowed to say no.