First, a warning that I think this post promotes a harmful frame that probably makes the lives of both the OP and the people around him worse. I want to suggest that people engage with this post, consider this frame, and choose to move in the opposite direction.
On the object level, it is possible to look at unambitious people and decide that while you do not want to be like them in this way. They may not be inherently ambitious, have values that lead to them rejecting ambition, or have other reasons for being unambitious (eg, personal problems). Regardless, I’m confused why this is what the OP is choosing to focus his empathy on, rather than the wide variety of other traits and feelings that a person can posses. I’m also confused why this is the metric someone would use to judge a person, value them, or seek to understand them by.
if I empathize more, put myself in other peoples’ shoes, try to feel what they’re feeling, see things from their perspective, etc, then I’ll feel kinder toward them. I’ll feel more sympathetic, be gentler, more compassionate or generous.
Tbc, the problem isn’t that the OP is disappointed when considering lack of ambition (if you care a lot about being ambitious yourself, maybe this is the right reaction, though you should still seek to understand why others are not). The problem here is that the main thing the OP sees when he tries to empathize is a lack of ambition. And not, you know, any of the normal things that would make you more compassionate towards someone, like their emotional state, desires, personality, good-heartedness, etc.
I don’t focus on ambition per se; I bring up ambition later in the post because I think it’s an underlying driver. What draws my attention is people who suck in various big ways, and just kinda wallow in it rather than do anything about it. That’s what triggers my reaction.
This is mostly the thing I mean when I use the word ambition above. I think you’re using the word to mean something overlapping but distinct; I’m trying to capture the overarching thing that contains both ‘wallow in it’ and the ‘underlying driver’ of your disgust/disappointment reaction.
First, a warning that I think this post promotes a harmful frame that probably makes the lives of both the OP and the people around him worse. I want to suggest that people engage with this post, consider this frame, and choose to move in the opposite direction.
On the object level, it is possible to look at unambitious people and decide that while you do not want to be like them in this way. They may not be inherently ambitious, have values that lead to them rejecting ambition, or have other reasons for being unambitious (eg, personal problems). Regardless, I’m confused why this is what the OP is choosing to focus his empathy on, rather than the wide variety of other traits and feelings that a person can posses. I’m also confused why this is the metric someone would use to judge a person, value them, or seek to understand them by.
Tbc, the problem isn’t that the OP is disappointed when considering lack of ambition (if you care a lot about being ambitious yourself, maybe this is the right reaction, though you should still seek to understand why others are not). The problem here is that the main thing the OP sees when he tries to empathize is a lack of ambition. And not, you know, any of the normal things that would make you more compassionate towards someone, like their emotional state, desires, personality, good-heartedness, etc.
I don’t focus on ambition per se; I bring up ambition later in the post because I think it’s an underlying driver. What draws my attention is people who suck in various big ways, and just kinda wallow in it rather than do anything about it. That’s what triggers my reaction.
This is mostly the thing I mean when I use the word ambition above. I think you’re using the word to mean something overlapping but distinct; I’m trying to capture the overarching thing that contains both ‘wallow in it’ and the ‘underlying driver’ of your disgust/disappointment reaction.