Day 953 - Most ambitions are borrowed - https://golifelog.com/posts/most-ambitions-are-borrowed-1691720529321
> Real ambitions are not about working at Google or Meta, being funded by Y Combinator, or building a unicorn. You are ambitious if you dare to live the life you want to live. Not was imposed on you. It can be still building a unicorn or working at corporate. It can be building a boring SaaS. Make sure you decide. Thanks to Paul Millerd for writing and sharing his “Pathless Path”. The book is pretty eye-opening. – [@DmytroKrasun](https://twitter.com/DmytroKrasun/status/1689522905862791168)
Thought-provoking tweet by Dmytro. And I dare say, a lot of ambitions are borrowed, without real questioning.
I say this because it happened to me way more often than I like. Despite what I like to think of myself as someone who reflects deeply, thinks critically, try not to follow popular or mainstream ideas just because everyone says it. Yes, we tend to reliably under-estimate how biased we are. Truth is, a lot of ideas about lifestyle, way of life, life goals and dreams make their way into our subconcious without us being aware, and it subtly programs our responses and behaviour in automated ways.
Like I used to want to start a tech startup that would serve millions and would change the world. That's so *Silicon Valley*. Why millions? Why change the world? Over time, I realised it didn't really drive me on a deeper, intrinsic level. There's no personal interpretation of it for my own background, context, needs, and dreams. It was simply something glamourous and inspiring, no less due to media hero worship of college dropout, tech billionaires. It was fashionable. It was popular. It was what everyone would love to be... like kids wanting to be Superman.
*So how do we truly know?*
For me, short answer is it's like true love. You know it when you have it. Sorry not very helpful haha.
Maybe a longer answer could be phrased in a *via negativa* way: I'm more sure it's not borrowed if I've personally struggled trying to achieve it, through lots of pain and sweat, yet I continue to choose to pursue it time and again even after reflecting on data and own dreams, despite knowing the trade-offs.
Example: This indie hacking journey. When I first knew about indie hacking, through folks like @yongfook and @levelsio, I was entralled. I loved the remote work, location independence aspects of it, because I was already self-employed for a while already, and enjoyed the freedom. But I was still tied to working in Singapore because of the nature of consulting for government agencies. So being able to travel, work anywhere and be even more free felt like the next step. Even though this next step meant I would be re-starting from zero again as a total beginner (compared to being an industry veteran in my current consulting practice). Few people of my age (mid 40s), my life stage as a new parent, and in my consulting industry ever do this.
I loved creating things too, from start to end, having a hand on every part of the value chain. As an employee in the past and as a designer, I never had that chance to conceptualize, design, develop and ship a product all the way. So indie hacking provided a way to do so. This was despite all the struggle learning how to code, how to market, how to do social media. I picked up and dropped coding multiple times. I loved making tech products but hated coding then, because it was so foreign to my personality and skillsets. But I persisted despite, because I loved making products too much. Now I actually love to code.
There's so many more stories of personalising the indie hacking dream for myself (and being able to articulate it well) but over the 5 years sinced I started, I'm more and more sure that this is an ambition that isn't just borrowed, and I had made my own.
I might not be there yet in terms of hitting my indie hacking goals of at least ramen profitability, and then financial, location and creative freedom after.
But at least I am sure when I reach there, I truly wanted it.
Thought-provoking tweet by Dmytro. And I dare say, a lot of ambitions are borrowed, without real questioning.
I say this because it happened to me way more often than I like. Despite what I like to think of myself as someone who reflects deeply, thinks critically, try not to follow popular or mainstream ideas just because everyone says it. Yes, we tend to reliably under-estimate how biased we are. Truth is, a lot of ideas about lifestyle, way of life, life goals and dreams make their way into our subconcious without us being aware, and it subtly programs our responses and behaviour in automated ways.
Like I used to want to start a tech startup that would serve millions and would change the world. That's so *Silicon Valley*. Why millions? Why change the world? Over time, I realised it didn't really drive me on a deeper, intrinsic level. There's no personal interpretation of it for my own background, context, needs, and dreams. It was simply something glamourous and inspiring, no less due to media hero worship of college dropout, tech billionaires. It was fashionable. It was popular. It was what everyone would love to be... like kids wanting to be Superman.
*So how do we truly know?*
For me, short answer is it's like true love. You know it when you have it. Sorry not very helpful haha.
Maybe a longer answer could be phrased in a *via negativa* way: I'm more sure it's not borrowed if I've personally struggled trying to achieve it, through lots of pain and sweat, yet I continue to choose to pursue it time and again even after reflecting on data and own dreams, despite knowing the trade-offs.
Example: This indie hacking journey. When I first knew about indie hacking, through folks like @yongfook and @levelsio, I was entralled. I loved the remote work, location independence aspects of it, because I was already self-employed for a while already, and enjoyed the freedom. But I was still tied to working in Singapore because of the nature of consulting for government agencies. So being able to travel, work anywhere and be even more free felt like the next step. Even though this next step meant I would be re-starting from zero again as a total beginner (compared to being an industry veteran in my current consulting practice). Few people of my age (mid 40s), my life stage as a new parent, and in my consulting industry ever do this.
I loved creating things too, from start to end, having a hand on every part of the value chain. As an employee in the past and as a designer, I never had that chance to conceptualize, design, develop and ship a product all the way. So indie hacking provided a way to do so. This was despite all the struggle learning how to code, how to market, how to do social media. I picked up and dropped coding multiple times. I loved making tech products but hated coding then, because it was so foreign to my personality and skillsets. But I persisted despite, because I loved making products too much. Now I actually love to code.
There's so many more stories of personalising the indie hacking dream for myself (and being able to articulate it well) but over the 5 years sinced I started, I'm more and more sure that this is an ambition that isn't just borrowed, and I had made my own.
I might not be there yet in terms of hitting my indie hacking goals of at least ramen profitability, and then financial, location and creative freedom after.
But at least I am sure when I reach there, I truly wanted it.