Ambition is often seen as striving; climbing; achieving.
But for many disabled people, this ambition is also laced with grief. Grief because the body (or mind) can’t keep up with the pace of the vision.
Because, how do you keep an ambitious mind, while also centering your lived physical experiences? This question is not just personal. It’s political, cultural and systemic. And for many of us, it feels like walking a tightrope between possibility and limitation every single day.
I know this feeling all to well, as I have always been highly ambitious.
A while back I was in the hospital for my epilepsi treatment. If you’ve ever had a «productive» day planned and ended up in a hospital bed instead, you know the mental spiral that can follow. With a to-do list completely untouched and goals practically put on pause, I felt like I’d hit a wall. With hopes, dreams and visions tucked neatly intoo my brain, but without a body or mind able to accomplish any of it. It’s heartbreaking. And even though I knew I needed to care for my health, I still felt like I had failed. And in many ways, I still do.
Because that’s the thing about ambition – it doesn’t dissapear just because your body needs to rest. Instead it just sits there quietly in the corner, constantly reminding you of all the things you aren’t doing.
However, some things have changed for the better.
During my 4-years spent in a hospital, getting worse and worse with the different meds, treatments, surgeries and whatnot; it also made me realize something else. I wasn’t the problem. My ambitions were neither dead nor broken, but the framework I was trying to fit intoo was.
Because, mainstream ambition – the kind sold by a myriad of different self-help books and productivity-gurus, are built on able-bodied norms. It expects consistency, stamina and independence by nature.
As writer and activist Mia Mungus explains in her work on access intimacy «we are taught to see interdependence as weakness». But what if that’s just another lie that serves ableism?. This notion is further exemplified by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice:
«We are told rest and slowness are the enemies of sucess. But for us, they are survival. And survival is a form of resistance». (Piepzna-Samarasinha, L.L. 2018)
So, instead of ambition being something that crushes us, what if we imagined it as something that adapts instead? Something that bends to our needs, rather than breaking us in the process?
As earlier mentioned, McRuers Crip-theory asks us to challenge the standards of what a «good life» looks like. It doesn’t mean we have to give up on ambition, but rather that we reimagine it in a way that also includes us. Now, this is not easy, but begins by viewing ambition not as a latter- but rather as a network (= messy, meaningful and rooted in interdependence). Maybe it’s about being a mentor, an artist, a connector or a truth-teller.
Because, maybe ambition is about choosing your values, not just your milestones.
Since the hospital stay when I first hit a wall, now 3 years ago, I’ve been working on a new way of being ambitious. It’s nowhere near perfect, but it’s one that I feel comfortable and able to continue, one that flows with my body’s natural rhytm instead of trying to change it. As an example, my body needs ALOT of sleep. We’re talking 9-12 hours on an average day. Similarly, my energy rises and sinks at certain times most days, and these times are not always practical. So I ask myself frequently;
– what matters most today, given what my body can do?
– what version of a particular goal feels sustainable short and long-term?
– how can I break it down to easier tasks and still honour the vision?
I still have big dreams. I still care about growth. But I’ve stopped trying to meet standards that was not built with me (and my kind) in mind.
Ambition doesn’t have to be about pushing harder. Sometimes it’s about pushing differently – or not pushing at all.
[Image by: Miguel Bruna
«Unsplash]
«You are not lazy, unmotivated or stuck. After years of living in survival mode, you are exhausted. There is a difference»
-Nakeia Homer (ref:
To anyone reading this who feels like their ambition is broken – believe me, it’s not. You might be grieving an old definition, and that’s ok.
The truth is that the world needs disabled ambition. Ambition that is deep, not just tall. Ambition that honours interdependence, adaption and authenticity. That includes me – and you, not just our output.
So here is an invitation;
if you could have one goal to dream of – not in spite of your body or mind, but with it as is, what would it be?
– Silje