America is obsessed with ambition. Is it time to redefine it?

Ambition doesn't exist outside cultural forces that shape it. Could we reframe it for the collective good?

In the first few months of the pandemic, when my physical and mental health seemed to be deteriorating faster than I could patchwork fixes for them, I wrote in my journal. I feel emptied out, like when I shake a tote and gum wrappers and two nickels and half-finished chapstick fall out," I scrawled in sloppy cursive I can barely make out now. I am my own life's leftovers."

While the circumstances of a deadly pandemic exacerbated it, the feeling that I had nothing left to give had trailed me for awhile, showing up as I worked from the bathroom floor when my body felt as if it was giving way, or when I spent too much time awake at night, wondering what felt worth it any more.