Clarissa Tan

As a little kid, I dreamt up intricate stories about families and friends and siblings, all loosely inspired by my own friends and cousins. These made-up kids lived in giant blue mansions with 22 floors and dumbwaiters that served as alternative methods of transportation — I barely knew what a dumbwaiter, a pulley to carry food from one floor to another, was. Others had cute little cottages and grew their own fruits and vegetables, nestled in the midst of the vast Maine forest — why Maine, I have no idea — or lived instead in some Star Wars inspired world, with space travel, fancy technology and intergalactic schools.

On occasion, I drew little chicken-scratch, elementary-school drawings of these characters’ houses, but I rarely wrote them down. My knowledge of their vast, imagined worlds rests solely in my heads, buried and crammed into nooks and crevices I haven’t thought to look in for years. And that was how I liked it — I derived no joy from putting these universes on display for my friends and family. They existed for me, and me alone.

I discovered poetry in middle school, and found out, too, that I could have an audience for my creativity. Friends, family, teachers — if I sent them the poems I wrote, they’d read them. And I felt I produced something worthwhile. As I explored poetry, writing about my grandparents’ houses, about my summer travels, about my late-night reflections on books I read for school, something drove me to feel productive. My poetry was not entirely for me. I had ambition.

This continued into high school, where I suddenly couldn’t seem to do enough with my afternoons. I devoted myself to the swim team in the winter, enjoyed our daily practices in the cold water of the Boys and Girls Club pool, even though we lost most — dare I say all — of our meets. In the spring I played tennis, and similarly, I stayed after school for every practice, every match. I enjoyed both sports, found the 500 free contemplative and, if not relaxing, then satisfying. Tennis practice was relaxing, as I sank into a rhythm hitting back and forth with my teammates. Bend your knees, move your feet, watch the ball.

Additionally, though, I treasured the thrill of knowing I was doing something. I wanted to make the most of my time and wanted it to feel full. I started my high school’s literary magazine because, in addition to the fact that I loved writing, it felt exciting to undertake such a project. Meetings popped up, Google Docs with submitted writing and outlines for future issues filled my computer. Ambition brought an adrenaline rush. Ambition brought energy.

But ambition is a double-edged sword. For all its vivacity, it hones within me a competitiveness, a desire for external validation. My faith in my poetry rested in part on how much I could write, what my readers thought about it. My time on the swim team, the tennis team, the literary magazine meant so much because they proved I could fill my time with activities, with commitments. I proved to someone — to no one exactly, but to the world at large — that I could do these things. They weren’t just for me.

At Yale, I’ve confronted my ambition head-on. While in many ways I thrive in the evening rush from dinner to club meeting — to another club meeting — to studying, while I sign up for as many email lists as possible, hoping that someday I’ll have the time to take part in every organization I hear from, it exhausts me. It is challenging to know that no matter what I do, there will always be more that I haven’t done. 

My friends do equally fascinating and exciting activities, and they are completely different from mine — singing, music, research, Model UN. I do not do these things. I will not ever do many of them. Part of me feels incomplete knowing this, knowing I won’t get the validation of partaking in another club, that ambitious adrenaline rush from joining another GroupMe or WhatsApp chat. I’m left a little bit empty, disappointed, despite the fact that my days are filled with writing, running, talking with friends, going to speaker events and book talks.

So I’ve decided I’ve had enough with unhealthy ambition. Enough with comparing myself to those around me, always hoping to do more, always looking to prove that I can manage another obligation. I want to return to the days of my made-up stories, created only for me. 

Mary Oliver has a poem, below, called “There is a Place Beyond Ambition.” I aim to find it, somewhere in the absence of validation, where I feel more at peace. Maybe right now, slouched on the couch in my common room at 2 a.m., comfortably lulled by the drone of our mini fridge, the light above me warm and sleepy, is a place to start.

“There is a Place Beyond Ambition,” by Mary Oliver

When the flute players

couldn’t think of what to say next

they laid down their pipes,

then they lay down themselves

beside the river

and just listened.

Some of them, after a while,

jumped up

and disappeared back inside the busy town.

But the rest—

so quiet, not even thoughtful—

are still there,

still listening.