A realization that I can choose to go slow and also be ambitious
One of my major struggles in life is managing my ambitions while being a person who chases imperfection (yes, you read it right) and a person who wants to go slow and simple.
My last three weeks have been highly passionate. Day in and Day out, all I thought about was my next piece of work; it was either my differential geometry course (notes) or the mathematical direction of my master’s thesis. My breaks often included watching lectures by people like Atiyah, Fefferman and others, broadly on the geometry of manifolds. I was so excited to be able to work on my ambition of doing mathematics. I was giving ALL my energy into it.
The last three weeks were also when I had been trying to put all my academic narrative together. I had been emailing mathematicians in India to support me minimally via interactions. I have a plan for next year. I want to do that to give my best to academia. However, it would be highly productive to stay near an academic environment and interact with mathematicians and possibly physicists.
My experience in academia has been a unique one. And there are many narratives around me that constantly stress me.
For a couple of days, I have been thinking about it, how I don’t fit in. But what’s making me more stressed is TRYING TO FIT IN! Falling into the narrative I don’t want to and ending up stressed for not being able to follow the narrative.
Yesterday, I decided to open my nerd account and watch something philosophical. I found John’s video first. What to do with your life? The same one that comforted me a couple of years back and has comforted me ever since then. I also watched Hank’s Some Rough Advice for the World.
This immediately grounded me. The first thing I told myself is I don’t have to stress myself to align with the narratives - that I am hearing from my parents, thesis advisor, and my partner. They all have valid advice, which I should appreciate, but I cannot stress myself for not being able to follow it. I cannot do it and don’t want to do it, and I am done fighting against it.
I also returned to my old job hunting, where my honest values were appreciated rather than corrected constantly to match the market. I found HIAL at Ladakh quite an interesting place to volunteer or intern.
But the truth is, I am burned out. I am burned by constantly doing the right thing and giving ALL my energy to my ambition. Hoping for someday to arrive when all my efforts will be worth it, and I will be welcomed with a kind gesture.
But it was all natural. I wanted to do it. But now I think I have found a broader perspective on this!
While nerding out on YouTube, I found a video essay by a person called (let’s go with it) ASH. The Ash Files, that’s what the channel and the substack are named. It spoke for me. It grounded me completely back to myself. I have been hearing it all day yesterday. It felt like I was listening to myself, who figured out his feelings in the last few weeks.
Let me play it for you here; it’s worth reading/listening/watching. At least I wanna listen to it again, so here it goes.
I want to quote some of the writing here. I have been doing this in the past few weeks: tiring myself out, trying to do everything right, and giving up almost everything else. And then there I was in the last two days, burned out.
This is part of me. I don’t want to reject it. Like ASH writes,
So no, I am not rejecting ambition. I am just rejecting the version of it that says you have to give up everything else in its pursuit. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that doing all the right things guarantees absolutely nothing, and the things that actually change your life tend to blindside you on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.
I was 22 when I first tried to break into the film industry. I sent hundreds of emails to production companies. Not one of them responded. My big break didn’t come from networking or LinkedIn or a strategically placed hustle. It came because a production coordinator walked into my dad’s restaurant, struck up a conversation, and three months later, I got a call asking if I wanted to be a cast assistant on a movie. My life trajectory changed overnight.
This is the part no one wants to talk about. That luck plays a role. That you can do all the right things, hustle your way into exhaustion, and still—still—find that the thing that moves your life forward is something as ridiculous as someone ordering a sandwich in the right place at the right time.
Of course, luck only works if you’re ready for it. And it has an uncanny ability to show up precisely when you’ve decided you don’t care anymore. It never arrives when you’re prepared, wearing a perfectly curated outfit and holding a color-coded planner. No, it shows up when you’re wearing questionable sweatpants, carrying a receipt for something you don’t remember buying, and contemplating whether you have the energy to make dinner or if you’ll simply exist near food and hope for the best.
So I work. I write. I take my ambition seriously. But I also make space for nothing. I let my brain do what it needs to do: rest, wander, stop trying so hard. I’ve learned that some of my best ideas come when I’m not working. That the right sentence usually arrives when I stop looking for it. That forcing something to happen never makes it happen any faster. (See also: dating, long lines at the grocery store, and waiting for a text back.)
This doesn’t mean I am going to stop mailing more people. This means I will not give up everything else on my ambition. I will not give up on the part of myself that wants to breathe through life slowly. It will be a challenge. The thing about having ambition that keeps you from staying still is that it fools you into working passionately into it while giving it ALL. It will take a delicate balance to hold back and care for the other part of me.
Love you, ASH. Thank you so much for hitting me with these thoughts. I wanted to hear them.
It’s going to be tricky, but I truly believe that it is gonna benefit my ambition.. I will have more ideas and headspace to produce quality work.
I want to get ready. And I have a plan in place, which shall take a few months, covering the basics of math.