While I understand the topic i don't like this example. The article is about a wealthy guy who can travel the world racing cars.. who then got pissy at coming second.<p>The objective of a car race is to win.. especially if you have the best team and car. You should be somewhat dejected if you didn't. It is the nature of competitive events.<p>This article has first world rich boy problems written all over it.<p>A far better example of this topic would be a friend of mine. He started his own business. Worked day and night to get it running. He always said he would enjoy the spoils of his work. He didn't. He had more and more success but he got sucked into chasing ambition and achievement. He never eased up or stepped back. His life became chasing More. His wife left him. He continued to work excessive hours until he completely burnt out. It was only when he met someone else that he learnt to take a step back and appreciate and enjoy what he had created.<p>If i enter a race in my Punto it is going to be fun. I have little expectation of winning, I am there to say I did it.<p>DHH went to Le Man's to win. He didn't. This isn't poisonous ambition. This is missing the target.. much like this article. If he went to experience it, got caught up in winning and didn't enjoy any of it then perhaps he would have some sort of point.
<p><pre><code> Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.
</code></pre>
-- Tao te Ching, Stephen Mitchell translation (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061142662" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061142662</a>).
This reminds me of Stephen Fry's recent post about depression[1]. Many of the reactions to DHH's post seem to focus on his social and financial status (e.g. "first world rich boy problems"), as if to say his success means he has no right to feel any negative emotions. This is something that troubled Stephen deeply, and was likely a significant barrier to his seeking help.<p>It may be difficult for us to relate to his particular situation, but if we look for the lesson he's trying to teach and apply it to our own lives, even superficially, we may learn something of value.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933557" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933557</a>
This really resonated with me, I realized at one point that I couldn't enjoy video games if I didn't win them. There was another article about the Startup bus and the toxicity of doing whatever it took to "win".<p>I am much more appreciative of the Journey now than I was when I was younger.
This type of talk is much needed in the Tech world. Nice to see someone like David actual call the problem out. A problem as old as time.<p>The Stoic view - "The perfect archer is concerned to take perfect aim, to do everything an archer can do to hit the target. Actually hitting the target is secondary. If any unpredictable gust of wind carries the arrow away and it misses the target, this does not reflect on his mastery of the art and hence does not really affect the archer."<p>Miyamoto Musashi addresses the same issue in his "Book of Five Rings"
I'm reminded of Henry Newbolt's wonderful poem:<p>To set the cause above renown,<p>To love the game beyond the prize,<p>To honor while you strike him down,<p>The foe that comes fearless eyes.<p>To hold the life of battle good,<p>And dear the land that gave thee birth,<p>and dearer yet the brotherhood<p>that binds the brave of all the earth.
> That’s exactly the danger of what too much ambition can do: Narrow the range of acceptable outcomes to the ridiculous, and then make anything less seem like utter failure<p>I love this quote, it succinctly puts in words the uneasy feeling I've had with ambition.
I also had a problem with being "overly ambitious" early on in my life. Any satisfaction gained from being first in anything quickly died off, while placing 2nd gave me nightmares constantly and made me hate myself for it. I recently wrote a blog post about it [1].<p>Luckily, I was thrown into a foreign country where I was able to feel failure every single day at school until I was no longer overly resistant to it.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/the-cost-of-underselling/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jayhuang.org/blog/the-cost-of-underselling/</a>
"Armed with the fastest and most reliable car, the best-prepared team, and two of the fastest team mates in the business"<p>- If all these facts are indeed true then it does not seem too ambitious to expect to win the race. And one should be meaningfully disappointed at losing. I think there's some confusion here between over achieving and under achieving.<p>If they were such underdogs (resources, experience, team) that a Top 25 finish seemed unlikely then I can understand how beating yourself up over 2nd would be too overly ambitious. This though seems like healthy "We kind of under achieved given what was possible going into this"<p>Edit: Maybe not under achieved but understandably disappointed we didn't go one spot better.
2nd in LMP2<p>Wow. Having done plenty of amateur racing myself, I can say that his accomplishment is an amazing feat of determination, focus and skill. One day I'd love to do the same - not out of ambition, but because I love to race.
Courage can be poison.<p>Determination can be poison. Curiosity, compassion, and patience, too -- all are good traits to have but will poison you from within if you start molding your entire life around them, without moderation.<p>I like my eggs with Sriracha, but they're gonna be pretty bad eggs if I drown them in it.
"But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness." [1]<p>DHH's point seems to be falling on deaf ears for a large portion of the audience out of resentment for his financial status rather than embraced for exemplifying the law of diminishing returns at the emotional level.<p>This post is about the realization that an imbalanced life can rob from you the satisfaction of living. A singular focus can propel a person or team, but each incremental improvement comes at a higher cost than the last. Becoming the best is more exhaustive emotionally than it is financially; there is a certain solitude at the top. Rapid growth is chaotic—harder to manage, especially emotionally. I've noticed a trend of deeply emotional, saddening stories of this ambition overload and solitude DHH talks about, right here on HN.<p>Within our community it's easy to compare ourselves to our peers. Someone we know had their made-it-big moment, but they <i>obviously</i> just got lucky, or we're better than them. It's easy to seek validation through "success" or some external ideal, fueled by ambition and blinded by our own self-interest.<p>Slow down. Find a mentor who's been there. Learn to enjoy the process. Look to deliver happiness to those around you, and receive it graciously when they give it back. Don't seek happiness for yourself; create it for someone else.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJrNHdzm0k" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJrNHdzm0k</a>
The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil;—Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.<p>—Melville, Moby-Dick
This is where playing poker has served me well for years. I know I can win. But I can't win them all. I technically only need a small percentage of wins versus losses to be a winner. So losing is okay. But I agree 100%, don't let your head get the best of you. I think every man struggles with his own competitive ego and the older we get the more we realize the damage it can cause.
Reminds me of this TED talk - <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik.html</a> (the difference between the East & the West)
> Happiness doesn’t lie in the fulfillment of the expected. Neither in all the trinkets and trophies of the world. It’s in enjoying the immersion of the process, not the final outcome.<p>Thumbs up for this, but let me add that it can lie in <i>the fulfillment of the unexpected, the happiness of discovery and exploration, and of ending up creating things that are very different from what you set up to create in the first place.</i> This kind of "exploratory happiness" is my drug of choice ;)
<i>For mine own good All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er.</i><p>Ambition is no bad thing, as long as it's tempered. I think a problem with this piece is that he identified his issue, but never asked the killer question:<p>If he (and his team) had been both ambitious <i>and</i> thoroughly enjoying the entire experience, would they have won? There's much to be said about "being in the zone", and it feels from his writing that his ambition dulled this side for him. I'd be interested to hear what the experiences of the 1st and 3rd placed teams were, in comparison.<p>Of course, this is his leisure, so the question is doubly important: if you're in a business you can rationalize not enjoying the experience of making your $500 million victory whilst enjoying the outcome. In leisure, the entire point is enjoying the whole thing.
This reminds me of a parody[0] of an Oracle press release I once posted to Reddit.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1ff8j3/java_on_sparc_t58_servers_is_fast/ca9oxx6" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1ff8j3/java_on_...</a>
> That’s a monumental achievement by almost any standards, yet also one of the least enjoyable experiences I’ve had driving a race car — all because of ambition.<p>I sincerly thought he was going to talk about how the fact that someone died in a car crash two days ago at Le Mans ruined the party. Then I realized he was talking about his own ambition. Not saying he's selfish because of that though, it's pretty human to care first about your own life. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/2013/06/22/allan-simonsen-crash-24-hours-of-le-mans/2448831/" rel="nofollow">http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/motor/2013/06/22/allan-...</a>
Frankly, I don't care whether David's post is this or that. What I care about is the point - optimise your life for happiness and recognise that happiness is in the doing, in the living, not the outcome.
"Rightfully so, ambition is universally revered."<p>Not true.<p>The use of "universally" should be limited to a few universal truth and for jokes about people thinking their limited scope is the universe.<p>Examples of probable universal truths (other than mathematic or physic laws):
- Mother universally smile to their infants. (Few exceptions)
- Incest taboo is near-universal.
- Fear of the unknown is almost universal.<p>Wrongs:
- Men universally prefer big waist and boobs.
- Religion is universal.
- Everyone loves pets/sport/music.<p>And no, the quote above is not a figure de style, it is just poorly thought writing.
<i>That’s exactly the danger of what too much ambition can do: Narrow the range of acceptable outcomes to the ridiculous, and then make anything less seem like utter failure.</i><p>Poison implies something that slowly devours you and your body with little ability to control/quell it. I see ambition as inherently good. It's the "constant pursuit of perfection".<p>This "poison" is easy to deal with - just go again next year and win it.
Have you ever heard of the self-advertising agency of 37 signals? So gorgeous, so great, so smart and so on and on this David boy. Come on guys for real ?
Why can't I zoom in the Blog from an Ipad?
Cheers
Oh, you're so awesome it hurts? Sorry to hear about your rich people problems.<p>> the greatest motor race in the world: 24 hours of Le Mans<p>The entire southern half of the U.S. begs to differ. Personally, I'd go with the Monaco Grand Prix if we're talking cars. If we're talking about "motor races" in general, it'd definitely be the Isle of Man TT. Hell, any one of the 18 yearly Moto GP races is probably better than Le Mans.