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.

Well, I didn't say anything at the time, but he got a tenure-track job in SoCal and we're moving there in the fall.

I love what I do. It makes me insane sometimes, but I love it.

Oh WOW, Dana! Congrats.

I'm gonna call my dentist in a little bit. Hopefully they can get me in in the next couple days (I have a cleaning scheduled but not for another 2 weeks and just HELL NO.)

Congrats, bon bon and bob bob.

And house-ma, Dana and Danahub.

Also, I'm very much in line with msbelle's form of ambition, and shrift's. I *have* ambition, it's just not monetarily related. It may, and usually does, have to do with how I want to spend my life, the work I enjoy. But people don't pay me for that.

Ambition isn't perceived as such, usually, if it isn't related to career or fortune-building. Is, though. Said so.

Congrats to Dana and DH, bon bon and bob bob.