More money. Better health. A nicer home. More achievements. Greater security. One more improvement, then another.
Ambition is admired, productivity is praised, and standing still can feel like falling behind. So we keep pushing, often without examining what we're pushing toward.
But there's an uncomfortable possibility: sometimes staying busy is easier than sitting quietly with questions we'd rather avoid.
What would I do if I no longer needed to prove myself? What does growing older mean for the way I spend my time? Have I built a life I enjoy, or am I so busy preparing for the future that I rarely experience the present?
At 70, I have good reason to take those questions seriously. The future still matters, but time is no longer an abstraction. People we love won't always be here. Our bodies change. Opportunities pass. We cannot eliminate uncertainty or negotiate an extension on the time we have.
That isn't cause for panic. It's a reason to be more deliberate about what deserves our days.
Ambition isn't the problem. Unexamined ambition is.
The goals you inherited
Most of us absorb a definition of success long before we're old enough to examine it.
Get a good education. Find respectable work. Earn more. Own a home. Accumulate possessions. Keep improving. Eventually, retire and enjoy the rewards.
There's nothing inherently wrong with these goals. Money can provide security and choices. Achievement can be satisfying. A comfortable home and good health can make life considerably better.
The trouble begins when we accept somebody else's definition of success without asking whether it suits us.
Perhaps you want a promotion because you enjoy the challenge. Or perhaps you want the title because you need other people to see you as successful.
Perhaps you want more money because it would provide genuine security. Or perhaps your definition of security keeps expanding because you compare yourself with people who have more.
Psychologists Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan explored the distinction between intrinsic goals, such as personal growth and close relationships, and extrinsic goals, such as wealth, appearance, and social recognition. Their 1996 study found that placing greater relative importance on extrinsic aspirations was associated with lower well-being, while intrinsic aspirations were associated with better outcomes.
This doesn't mean money or recognition is bad. It means the goals we prioritize matter, and external rewards aren't reliable substitutes for a life that feels meaningful from within.
The finish line keeps moving
Psychologists call one relevant phenomenon hedonic adaptation: we often adjust to changes in our circumstances, so the satisfaction they initially bring can fade.
A purchase that once excited us becomes ordinary. An achievement becomes the new expectation. A financial milestone leads to another target.
In their 2006 review, Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, and Christie Scollon challenged the simplistic idea that everyone inevitably returns to a fixed level of happiness. Adaptation varies, and significant changes can have lasting effects. Still, their research helps explain why a new achievement doesn't always deliver the lasting satisfaction we expect.
The practical response is to distinguish between improvements that genuinely help and improvements pursued mainly because the next milestone is there.
If money is tight, more income may make an enormous difference. If your health is deteriorating, better treatment or a healthier routine can change your life. A meaningful achievement can bring lasting benefits.
But we can also work longer to afford a better lifestyle, then have less time to enjoy it. We can pursue financial security without ever defining what security would look like. We can optimize every detail of our lives while leaving little room to live them.
Before committing another year to a goal, consider what it will actually change in your everyday life. Will it provide security, independence, connection, or a meaningful challenge? Or will it mostly deliver a brief feeling of having moved ahead?
That distinction matters because our time and attention are finite. Even a worthwhile goal has an opportunity cost.
When looking after yourself becomes another competition
I track health and fitness metrics, and I find them useful. Sleep data, resting heart rate, heart-rate variability, and fitness estimates can reveal patterns worth paying attention to.
But there's a distinction between using numbers as information and allowing them to become a verdict on how well you're living.
A poor sleep score can prompt a sensible question about last night's habits. It doesn't automatically mean you've had a bad night. A fitness measurement can help track progress, but it cannot tell you whether you enjoyed the exercise. A number can be accurate and still fail to capture what matters most.
It's easy to turn health into another endless improvement project. The score must rise. The measurement must improve. The routine must become more precise.
At some point, it's worth asking what all this optimization is supposed to achieve.
If the purpose is to remain active, independent, and able to enjoy life, then those things should remain the measure of success. The numbers are useful because they serve that purpose — not because every number needs to improve indefinitely.
The point of looking after your health is to live better, not to spend your life managing a report card.
When should you push, adapt, or let go?
Stoicism, Taoism, and Buddhism approach ambition, control, and desire from different directions. Their ideas aren't identical, but they illuminate three decisions we face whenever we pursue a goal.
The Stoics emphasize directing effort toward our choices and character rather than depending entirely on outcomes we cannot control.
Taoist philosophy, particularly the idea of wu wei, cautions against forcing matters when a more responsive approach would work better.
Buddhist thought asks us to examine craving and attachment. Wanting something is not necessarily a problem. The difficulty arises when we make satisfaction dependent on acquiring it, only to discover that the next desire is already waiting.
These ideas suggest three practical responses.
Push when the goal remains worthwhile without the applause.
Ask yourself: Would I still want this if nobody ever knew I'd achieved it?
If the answer is yes, examine why. Perhaps the work itself matters, the skills you develop are valuable, the security you gain is real, or the contribution you make helps others. Those are good reasons to persist.
But don't ignore what the pursuit costs. Ambitious people can justify almost anything by connecting it to something important. A worthwhile goal can still demand too much.
Adapt when the destination matters but the route no longer makes sense.
A demanding exercise routine may need to change as your body changes. A career plan may need adjusting. A worthwhile ambition may require a different approach when circumstances shift.
Persistence doesn't require stubbornly repeating a method that has stopped working.
Let go when the desire keeps renewing itself and the costs outweigh the benefits.
Perhaps you've reached the financial position you once hoped would make you feel secure, but you keep moving the target. Perhaps you've spent years pursuing recognition that provides only temporary relief. Perhaps a goal that once mattered no longer fits the life you want.
Ask yourself: If I achieved this tomorrow, would I be satisfied — or would I simply need another target?
If the finish line keeps moving, the problem may be less about what you're missing and more about the belief that the next achievement will finally make you feel complete.
And remember: time already spent is not a reason to spend more. Past effort may have taught you something valuable, but it cannot guarantee that continuing is the right decision.
This is not about abandoning difficult goals. Meaningful work often demands sacrifice. It's about recognizing when persistence serves your values and when it feeds a craving no achievement will settle.
A good life needs to work on an ordinary Tuesday
Forget the dream house, the ideal retirement, the perfect body, or the achievement you've been working toward.
Imagine an ordinary Tuesday.
You wake up, eat breakfast, and go about your day. Perhaps you exercise, work, learn something, care for someone, or deal with an unexpected problem.
At the end of the day, what would make you feel it had been reasonably well spent?
Perhaps you had enough energy to do what mattered. You enjoyed a conversation, made progress on something useful, spent time outdoors, or had a little peace and quiet. Perhaps you laughed, learned something interesting, or simply weren't rushing from one obligation to the next.
A good life needs to work on an ordinary Tuesday.
Not every day will feel good. Illness, grief, caregiving, financial pressure, and difficult responsibilities can make ordinary days exhausting. Sometimes getting through the day is an achievement in itself.
And not everyone has the same freedom to change their circumstances. Someone supporting a family, caring for an ill partner, or struggling to pay essential bills cannot simply walk away in pursuit of a more fulfilling life.
The choices available to us are shaped by money, health, responsibilities, and circumstances we didn't choose. Living deliberately begins with recognizing the choices we actually have, not pretending every constraint can be wished away.
Still, when choices remain, how we use them matters. A better life may require a major change. It may also begin with a phone call, a walk, a more manageable routine, or one unnecessary commitment reconsidered.
Don't postpone everything meaningful until life is finally optimized. The conditions may never be perfect, and the days will keep passing.
What does “enough” mean to you?
We often pursue goals without defining success in a way that allows us to recognize it when we arrive.
Take financial security. You might spend years trying to accumulate more money because you want to feel safe. That's understandable. But if you never define what security means, you may keep pursuing a larger number long after your essential needs are covered.
A more useful approach is to identify the expenses you need to meet, the emergencies you want to be prepared for, and the degree of independence you're trying to preserve.
For one person, enough might mean being able to pay the bills without anxiety. For another, it might mean having the freedom to reduce working hours, travel, or help family members. These are different goals requiring different resources.
For me, the idea of enough comes back to freedom: having the security to remain independent, the health to stay active, and the freedom to choose how I spend my time. More of anything is worth pursuing when it genuinely improves those things. A bigger number, by itself, isn't a life plan.
“Enough” doesn't mean settling for inadequate circumstances. It means knowing what you're trying to achieve and recognizing that additional effort can eventually bring diminishing returns.
Try answering three questions:
- What do I genuinely want more of in my daily life? More energy, independence, connection, curiosity, quiet, adventure, or meaningful work?
- What would “enough” look like in one important area of my life? Define it as concretely as your circumstances allow.
- What is one change I can make this week? Choose something realistic that moves your life toward what matters.
You don't need to redesign your entire existence. Start by making one decision more consciously than you did before.
The question worth sitting with
No philosophy can give you a universal blueprint for a good life. Psychology can help explain why some goals satisfy us more than others. Experience can reveal which ambitions were worthwhile and which consumed more than they gave.
But you still have to decide what matters to you.
So here's a question worth answering honestly:
If nothing about your life changed for the next five years, what would you be glad you had — and what would you regret spending so much time pursuing?
Don't answer too quickly. Your answer might tell you more about the life you want than your next five-year plan.
The Watchdog Takeaway
Ambition can improve your life, but it can also keep you chasing a moving finish line. Push when a goal remains worthwhile without recognition, adapt when circumstances change, and reconsider pursuits whose costs outweigh their benefits. Define what “enough” means where you can, and make room for the people, experiences, and freedoms that give your life meaning.
Before you devote another year to getting more, decide what the more is supposed to give you.
Sources
- Kasser, T. & Ryan, R. M. (1996). Further Examining the American Dream: Differential Correlates of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167296223006 - Diener, E., Lucas, R. E. & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being. American Psychologist.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16719675/