Ambition

"Gilbert Brim is possibly the wisest person I’ve ever met face to face. I interviewed him for a report I did for the MacArthur Foundation in 1994. He was running a research network on midlife, on the psychology of people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and he had written this wonderful book called Ambition – How We Manage Success and Failure Throughout our Lives . In it, he brought together research as well as his own insights that he had collected in his own 75 or so years. It fits very well with Buddha because Brim recognises that our basic psychology is one of striving. When we get what we hoped for, we don’t celebrate for more than a minute – or a day at most. Right away we ratchet up our expectations, and move on to the next goal. Which is why we’re never really satisfied. The book is about how to be a Westerner who is going to strive, who is going to get great pleasure from work. It’s about how to violate the advice of the Buddha, while still respecting the psychology that the Buddha told us about. Brim has this phrase that I’ve never forgotten: he advises us to live life ‘at the level of just manageable difficulty’. So, if you live life at 50 per cent of your capacity, you’ll be bored and disengaged; if you live it at 100 per cent of your capacity, you’re going to be burned out, but if you live at about 85 per cent on average, with some fluctuations, that’s about the best you can do. Let’s say that if the Buddha had been born in the Midwest of the US he would have written Brim’s book. Brim has a Midwesterner’s work ethic, and Americans moralise work quite a lot…so Brim says don’t drop out of the game, play it, but play it so you don’t get trapped, play it wisely, so that you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour."