The Cost of Ambition
How striving to be better than others makes us worse {Plus 1 fun thing and... I need your recommendations}
The other day, I was talking with our son, William, who’s a junior in high school. He’s starting to think about where he might want to go to college, and all the questions that come with that.
At one point in our conversation, we started talking about how having an identity rooted in love might change the way he approaches the college application process. I asked, “Isn't it freeing that you don't have to get into X, Y, or Z in order to be okay?”
He said, “It’s freeing. But it’s also motivating because I can go for X, Y, and Z. And if I don't get in, I'm still okay.”
That caught me off guard. I’d been thinking about how freeing it would be to step off the treadmill of achievement—to believe you’re okay, even if you don’t get into the top schools or hit all the milestones our culture tells you are necessary for success. But William reminded me that when you know you’re already loved, already enough, you’re actually freed up to pursue those goals, but not because you need them to prove something.
Striving for Excellence, not Superiority
It’s a different kind of striving—striving for excellence, not superiority. And it comes from a place of rest, not fear.
In many ways, our daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, shows us what that kind of life can look like. She doesn’t strive in the same way the rest of us do. She doesn’t measure her worth—or anyone else’s—by success or comparison. She simply lives in the goodness of who she is. And that has become an invitation to the rest of us—to step back, to notice, to wonder if maybe we don’t have to prove ourselves all the time either.
It’s made me think about how this culture of comparison and competition distorts our understanding of ourselves—and of others. When our worth depends on being better, faster, smarter, or more accomplished, we’re never quite enough. There’s always someone else to measure against. And that constant striving can be exhausting.
But what if we believed we were already enough?
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That doesn’t mean we stop growing or working hard or dreaming big. As theologian Miroslav Volf has said, there’s nothing wrong with striving toward what’s good and meaningful. The problem comes when we strive from a place of fear or scarcity—when we think we have to be better than someone else in order to be okay.
What I’m learning, slowly and imperfectly, is that we are invited to live from a place of abundance. Of love. Of belonging. And from there, everything changes.
The Cost of Ambition
Miroslav joined me on the podcast to talk about his latest book, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. We explore:
The dark side of competition
Striving for excellence vs. striving for superiority
The illusion of individual achievement
Practices for embracing love and generosity
What happens in a community where everyone is trying to be better than each other? And what happens when we stop striving for superiority? Here are some insights from Miroslav:
The Cost of Constant Comparison
“You don’t have sufficient capital of self-love to extend the hand of friendship.” —MV
When we’re always measuring ourselves against others, we lose our capacity for generosity, joy, and connection. We stop supporting others. We struggle to celebrate their success. We see life as a competition—where someone must lose for us to win.
The Loneliness Behind the "Self-Made" Myth
“There are a lot of people that have genuine merit, but the problem then becomes when they ascribe the entirety of their merit to themselves.”—MV
As a professor at Yale, Miroslav says he’d credit maybe 2% of his success to himself. We’re shaped by parents, mentors, and communities. The myth of being “self-made” isolates us.
A World of Abundance
“We are garbaging the world... using it to shore up our fragile self.” —MV
We “garbage the world” and fail to recognize and experience true abundance when we only value what gives us a sense of being better than others. Instead of striving for more achievements and possessions to bolster our identity, Miroslav invites us to nurture the “spirituality of appreciation… to long for what we have.” He says: “I can breathe the fresh air freely and be who I am… It's almost paradise when we give up on striving for superiority.”
I hope you’ll listen (or watch), and then share this episode with a friend. How do you distinguish between striving for excellence and striving for superiority in your own life or in your children’s lives? Reply to this email or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
—Amy Julia
P.S. Keep scrolling for 1 fun thing, plus what I’m reading and watching these days. And if these podcast episodes are helpful to you, consider becoming a paid subscriber (if you aren’t already) to this email newsletter. Your support enables us to keep these episodes ad-free and to create content that challenges assumptions about the good life, proclaims the inherent belovedness of every human being, and helps envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. Thank you for being a part of our community!
1 Fun Thing - Book proposal work!
I took 24 hours to work on the proposal for my next book last week, which was glorious in so many ways, including this view of the sunrise. I’ll write more about the next book next week, so stay tuned for that!
I need your help!
Okay, I’ve been in a bit of a “meh” time of reading and watching lately. I thought Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (which so many people LOVED) was pretty good. I appreciated Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes, but I would only recommend it to people who are both politics nerds and religious nerds, and I’m not sure how many of us there are out there. Peter and I watched The Four Seasons and thought it was okay. So maybe it’s just me right now, but I do not have anything to vociferously recommend. That said, tonight I’m starting Katherine May’s The Electricity of Every Living Thing, so hopefully I will have a new book to gush about soon!
Meanwhile, please send your own recommendations—what have you read or watched lately that you loved?
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This last comment was from Carol Lemons
I'm excited for this episode.
My son Diego also doesn't strive in the same way the rest of us do.
He doesn't measure how long it takes to learn anything, the amount of progress he makes, or how he compares. I mean, I can't think of a better way to put it, but it's one of the ways he keeps reminding me how full of s**t I can be, and how that s crushes me.