On being a nurse: helping people is more an impulse than an ambition now. Bedside nursing is soooo instantly-gratifying, and fulfills the needs of some deep, primitive, social-grooming-craving part of my emotional system, I don’t know if it was different four years ago; I don’t trust myself to perfectly remember my past motivations. I think that for a long time “ambitions” had very little power to move me, because of the part of my brain that was convinced they were immoral and/or led to doom.
I do have ambitions to help people in strategic ways (nursing might be a strategic way, but it might not be), and hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
The nice thing about the impulse form is that it allows you to succeed at what you do despite being lazy and not having much in the way of motivation or willpower.
hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
Strategically fulfill your impulses. If I just wanted science to be done in the abstract, I’d lobby for funding to science or donate money to research. I, personally want to do science, and so I strategically plan my life so as to increase my ability to fulfill that impulse. It’s an ambition to do science, but I’d never be able to motivate myself if I took the route of going into finance and donating my large income to research (unless I intrinsically enjoyed finance—insufficient data to know),
I’m saying that ambition needs a carrot at the end of the pole. The carrot is the instant gratification of the act of being helpful. Strategically make it so your ability to carry out this “act of being helpful” is increased, so that you can squeeze more gratification out of it. Without the carrot, ambition will fail due to lack of willpower and motivation. So if you are “strategically helping people”, the end goal of the strategy must ultimately include something that furthers your own enjoyment and gratification, something you know you’ll actually feel good about.
Awesome breakdown! Thank you!
On being a nurse: helping people is more an impulse than an ambition now. Bedside nursing is soooo instantly-gratifying, and fulfills the needs of some deep, primitive, social-grooming-craving part of my emotional system, I don’t know if it was different four years ago; I don’t trust myself to perfectly remember my past motivations. I think that for a long time “ambitions” had very little power to move me, because of the part of my brain that was convinced they were immoral and/or led to doom.
I do have ambitions to help people in strategic ways (nursing might be a strategic way, but it might not be), and hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
The nice thing about the impulse form is that it allows you to succeed at what you do despite being lazy and not having much in the way of motivation or willpower.
Strategically fulfill your impulses. If I just wanted science to be done in the abstract, I’d lobby for funding to science or donate money to research. I, personally want to do science, and so I strategically plan my life so as to increase my ability to fulfill that impulse. It’s an ambition to do science, but I’d never be able to motivate myself if I took the route of going into finance and donating my large income to research (unless I intrinsically enjoyed finance—insufficient data to know),
I’m saying that ambition needs a carrot at the end of the pole. The carrot is the instant gratification of the act of being helpful. Strategically make it so your ability to carry out this “act of being helpful” is increased, so that you can squeeze more gratification out of it. Without the carrot, ambition will fail due to lack of willpower and motivation. So if you are “strategically helping people”, the end goal of the strategy must ultimately include something that furthers your own enjoyment and gratification, something you know you’ll actually feel good about.