Why Ambition is Slowly Killing You

Its stench is subtle, but for Americans, ambition comes with the citizenship.

Foligno, Italy, a woman passing the time. Photo by Stacey Eskelin

“If you wish to know what a man really is, give him power,” said 19th century writer Robert Ingersoll. The quote is often misattributed to Lincoln, but it was actually about Lincoln, as in here was a man with absolute power who never abused it.

And that is, indeed, the true mark of Lincoln’s greatness, much in the way that oversized men are often the most gentle. Is it the quiet confidence borne of real power that makes us great? In the wrong hands, certainly, power destroys everyone it touches.

As John and I do our summer perambulations around postage stamp-sized villages in Umbria and beyond, I find myself thinking about power and ambition. As Americans, we reek of it (ambition, at least; in terms of real power, I doubt we have any). Ambition is baked into our capitalist DNA. I’m no exception. Maroon me in one of these hobbit-hole villages, and I would go stark raving mad.

And yet, that’s not true of millions of Italians, who are perfectly happy to languish in obscurity. If structure, purpose, and community are the three pillars of happiness, many Italian villagers have long since discovered them. They go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning. Providing for their families gives them purpose, just as their friends give them community. Ambitions like “having a book on the New York Times Bestsellers’ list,” or “earning a million dollars before the age of thirty” are nothing more than idle musings, never to be taken seriously. They live in modest houses in charming, picturesque villages, watch soccer with all their paisans on a big screen in the piazza, drink vino, play video poker at the bar, and engage in the favorite sport of all village codgers: competitive grousing.

John and I watch this contentment with a combination of awe and envy. We are tainted, you see. American. We are still, at our hearts, poisoned with restless ambition. We continue to aspire—that most holy of American precepts—at a time in our lives when our chances for success are rapidly dwindling.

For us, it is too late perhaps to choose a life of simple pleasures. Once contaminated by ambition, it never leaves you. To sink into your own obsolescence requires a complete acceptance of your condition in life. How many Americans are actually capable of this? We get hair plugs and Viagra. We rage against the dying of the light.

So, what is it about Italy that engenders this puzzling serenity?

One reason may be that unlike the U.S., Italy is an old country steeped in tradition. Also unlike the U.S., it has seen the dark side of power and ambition, not once, but many times throughout its long history, and on its own soil: wars, invasions (on average, one every hundred years), territorial disputes, power grabs. A kind of fatalism settles into one’s bones. Don’t try. Trying tires you out and gets you nowhere. Go lie down. Have a love affair or another glass of wine.

Meanwhile, we Americans commute an hour to work and another hour back, stuff a McMuffin into our faces, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for our air-conditioned Garage Mahals we’re too busy to live in, disembowel each other for even a crumb of approval from our corporate overlords, and reward ourselves at the end of the day not with simple pleasures, but the kind of hardcore drinking and prescription drug use that knocks us on our ass and helps us forget we have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

Power. We want it. But is it good for us?

We want the pricy cars that will impress our neighbors, the biggest house, the high-status job, the hottest spouse. Our kids must reflect our dreams and ambitions for them. We cheat to get them into the best schools. We force them into every extracurricular activity in hopes of discovering a hidden genius, a genius that will prove, once and for all, how much better we are.

Italian kids ride their bikes around the village. They play soccer on the same hallowed stones that once gave passage to Cicero and Pliny the Elder. No one is breathing down their necks to get in the car, dammit, because we’re going to “Mommy and Me.”

In the States, familiarity with power and the uses of power differ according to age and gender. Case in point:

One of my immediate family members works as a cop. Being able to show up and take control of a crime scene is coin of the realm with law enforcement. Without it, things can go fatally wrong. It is his considered opinion that most women under twenty-five have a harder time exercising this kind of authority. “They go through the academy, get hired, but then they wash out,” he tells me. “As a cop, you have to be comfortable telling people what to do and making sure they do it. Conversely, the best cops are often women over thirty, women who’ve had kids. They’re used to being in charge.”

This makes sense to me. Back when I was twenty-one or twenty-two, I’d already been well conditioned to perceive powerful women as ballbusters, ridiculous and de-sexualized. Unfortunately, I’d also been conditioned to believe that the desire of men—the male gaze itself—was evidence of my power. What a shabby substitute for real authority. And how many young women still believe their real clout lies in how beautiful they are or many men want them sexually? No wonder after a few hundred Instagram selfies in cop gear and a few hard months on the street, these young cops decide to go elsewhere. I would, too.

Now, of course, I know my own power. I know exactly who and what I am, without judgment or self-loathing, which is itself a marvelous form of power. This requires that I see myself with perfect clarity. And what I see does sometimes make me sad.

I am American. That is the winter of my discontent. I’m full of wanting, even though wanting robs me of the joy of the present moment. Sometimes I awaken, breathe, listen instead of hear, see instead of look. But inevitably, I settle back into the monotony of my brooding American thoughts, thoughts of what’s missing, not of what’s alive right in front of me.

Much of this stems from being 9000 kilometers away from my family. But the other part has its roots in my failure to shed that old American snakeskin: ambition and power.

Both will kill you eventually. Most Italians already know that.