Baconhenge

Congrats bob and bon!

All I want to do for the next 10 years is make enough money to live and save and not hate my workplace. Recently they have been asking me about wanting to learn new things and I have no interest. I'll probably end up doing some of it just because it will help my department and give me additional marketable skills. Someone mentioned taking classes or doing professional development and I would rather get food poisoning.

I have my performance evaluation today at 1:00. I'm not too worried, because my boss and colleagues have been vocally positive about my work overall. But I'm kinda dreading the "goals for the next year" part, because "keep doing what I'm doing now to keep the program running, just do a good job and maintain the status quo so I can devote heart and soul to my writing" isn't what you're supposed to say. It doesn't help that when my boss first started here, I kinda, um, lied and claimed an interest in moving higher in hospital/academic administration instead of just honestly admitting that the only reason I work is that I'm not yet making ANY money as a writer, much less enough to live on.

I love my work. Sometimes the hours are a bit much but that's just part of the sacrifice.

Is it okay to not have ambition?

Yes. Very much so.

I don't *really* have ambition. There are things that I would like to have happen in my life, and since I don't have anything better to do, I'll direct my efforts at them. But I'm not brimming with zeal and drive. A friend once told me that I seemed to live in a perpetual state of "serendipity overdrive", which I think is a lovely way to describe it.

I love my work. Sometimes the hours are a bit much but that's just part of the sacrifice.

Me too.

I'm not sure if "ambition" is the right word for me. I have goals, but they're not really career-related. Careerwise, I want to make enough money doing something I don't hate to support the rest of my life.

On the whole, I enjoy what I do. And my current boss is good - we work well together and he seems to appreciate what I do and how I do it. I'd LIKE to make more money, but I work for a not-for-profit, so that's not really something that's going to happen. But I make enough to support myself well enough, so I'm counting my blessings. (And THIS boss isn't trying to kill me - yay?)

It's funny. I feel like I'm insufficiently ambitious in all the traditional career measures. I mean, if I really wanted to, I'm sure I could be an Important Hospital Administrator in 15-20 years, but why would I want to? I'm interested in neither the job nor everything it would take me to get from here to there. And I'm glad I didn't become a doctor or lawyer or any of the things I said I wanted when I was growing up, because I'd have even less time to write. Maybe, MAYBE, if I had my life to live over again I'd get that PhD in paleoanthropology or history...but if you offered me the choice between a professorship at a top university and a successful writing career, I'd take the writing career without a second thought.

OTOH, as I said, I'm very ambitious about my writing, and I'm pretty ruthless with myself or anyone else, even including beloved family and friends, when it comes to protecting my writing time and putting my writing goals ahead of everything else. And one question I often ask myself (and am even exploring through one of the characters in my WIP) is whether it's possible to be hard-driven and hard-driving, single-minded in the pursuit of a cherished goal, while still being, well, a human. I don't want to lose all capacity for love, spontaneity, and compassion...but don't come between me and my books.