Ambition and envy
I find it deeply challenging, even frightening, to publically admit to ambition. Some of the issue is that I have a darn good life already, and it seems greedy and ungrateful to ask for more. Some of it is that if I acknowlege ambitious goals, I will be one step closer to doing the often scary things needed to further them. And some of it is the fear that if I stick myself foward as special, someone will unmask me as an imposter, an ordinary person pretending to be the wizard of Oz.
Anna Fels, in Necessary Dreams, (which I’ve discussed previously) argues that such ambivalence about ambition is a rational response to a society in which ambition is still seen as unfeminine and in which overt displays of ambition and self-promotion can be costly to women. I’m not convinced that’s what’s going on here, though.
I usually am pretty good at locking my ambitions up, but occasionally they escape and give me a good kick in the teeth. This often takes the form of a blinding flash of envy when I hear or read about someone doing what I’d like to do. I’ll admit to feeling such a flash when I read in Ms. Musings that Amy Richards has a book deal for Opting In: The Case for Feminism and Motherhood, “an exploration of the anxiety over parenting that young women face today, mixing memoir, interviews, historical analysis, and feminist insight to bridge the seeming gap between everyday moms and the feminist movement while providing advice on how women can forge their own path in parenthood.”
The New York Times has an article today about bloggers with book deals, including one story of a minister-blogger who was approached by an editor after just three weeks of blogging. I think I’m still hanging onto the fantasy that someone is going to read this blog and be so blown away by my brilliance that they offer me a book deal, or a series of columns in a major magazine or "the standard rich and famous contract." It’s not just that self-promotion is scary; it’s that I’m in the school of thought that devalues anything that seems to be the result of self-promotion.
A few weeks ago, Salon ran an article about Iris Chang, in which one of her peers writes about envying Chang her articles in major newspapers, before learning what she terms "the Iris code." Paula Kamen writes: "I had finally cracked it. And it was so simple: Think big. Almost to the point of being naive." Is that the secret to success? And if so, what to make of the fact that Chang killed herself at age 36?
