Room for ambition

Almost twenty years ago, I was hanging out at a startup office in Finland, drinking late into a Friday night. Someone asked a question that has stayed with me ever since.

How do we become the best people of our generation?

The question was asked in earnest. What could we become truly good at, and how could we contribute something meaningful to the world?

When you are young, much of the world looks like something other people have built. Seeing yourself as part of your generation means not comparing yourself to those who came before, but recognizing that you, too, will shape what comes next.

Many people in that room went on to do great things. I don’t think the question caused that. We were probably there because we were already trying to do something. But it mattered that we could express that ambition and take each other seriously.

That is what shared ambition means to me. People pursuing different things, but wanting each other to do something great. You don’t need to agree with every idea. But there is a room, or an environment, that gives ambition space.

Often, the support is simple: listening seriously, sharing an idea or a story, making an introduction. Helping where you can without assuming you know what someone should do. Advice can be wrong.

I’ve kept this question to myself because ambition can sound like self-importance. But I don’t think of the question as a prediction of who I will become. It’s something to live up to: to make something great. An obligation to make an honest effort, not a claim to recognition.

And while greatness can be vague, you can also think of it as mastery. I’ve never thought of myself as competitive in the conventional sense. I like winning and hate losing, but I’m less interested in beating someone else than in becoming capable of doing something great. You can get very good at playing by someone else’s rules, and competition doesn’t always lead to greatness or mastery.

I don’t think becoming the best always means becoming better than someone else. Sometimes it means developing your abilities into something so distinctly your own that there is no useful comparison.

I realize not everyone starts with the same opportunities, and effort doesn’t guarantee an outcome. But believing I can choose what to learn, practice, and strive for gives me an opportunity to do it.

There is room for that ambition in many kinds of work, in raising a family, or in becoming someone other people can depend on. Being the best doesn’t have to mean competing. It can mean asking more of yourself in the things that matter to you.

Many decisions in my life have come back to the same question: does this put me in a position to contribute more? Sometimes that has meant putting off getting paid for an opportunity. Other times it has meant fighting for the resources to keep going. Sometimes it has been declining opportunities, or creating new ones.

Almost twenty years later, I still think about that room and what was asked.

How do we become the best people of our generation?

I’m still trying to find out how much I can contribute. And I still want to be around people asking how they can better themselves and better the world.