Can you be ambitious and still choose a soft life?
By
Gabe Santos
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations.
An apparent telltale sign of a Virgo is their love for a to-do list and a plan—a set of things to accomplish, followed by the satisfaction of ticking each one off or crossing it out. I can speak on this with authority as I have a stellium in Virgo.
Back in 2018, halfway through my undergraduate degree, my college friends and I created our 10-year plan. It was a Google Sheet with our names at the top of the columns, different facets of life in the rows, and a tab for each of the next ten years. I filled mine up with every goal and milestone I wanted to achieve.
It went something like this: graduate from UP with honors, get work experience, apply for a master’s degree in New York, graduate with said master’s degree, work in New York, get engaged, move to an apartment, live alone, get married, and have a baby. At 20, I essentially project-managed what the next decade of my life was going to look like.
Eight years later, nine of those ten things have been accomplished. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, and I don’t take my dedication to my plan for granted, but my brain has been in a non-stop “what’s next” mode for the past eight years, consistently moving from one item to the next, with no breaks in between. There’s only one item on my list left unchecked, but for the first time in a long time, it’s not something I need to urgently accomplish—and that’s new for me.
This is the first time in almost eight years that I’m not chasing anything. There’s no rush to tick off what’s next, no immediate action needed, no exclamation point in my journal to highlight critical need. Just existing.
I thought this would feel like relief, like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Instead, it feels unnerving. It’s almost weird and unsettling that there’s nothing I’m worrying about or preparing for. For someone who’s so used to chasing the next thing and living in an almost constant state of stress, the silence of this period is unfamiliar but also, surprisingly, exciting.
I’ve spent so much of my life running towards the next big thing that I’m not sure what to do when there’s no pressure to chase a goal.
In the silence of my brain came the urge to hop on side quests: to get crafty, try new things, move around, spend money, and let myself get loose. I signed up for Pilates classes, joined a workout membership, and bought passes to arts and crafts classes. None of these had a particular goal; they were just things I wanted to try or do.
And then, to my surprise, came guilt. There was a push to “live and enjoy” that was immediately countered by the pull to “be responsible, stay sensible, so I’m prepared for the next item on the list.” I realized that I was using my goals and milestones to evaluate how I used my time and resources, and that I wasn’t sure how to spend them when there was no clear-cut goal in mind.
Somewhere along the way, I started to treat enjoyment as a productivity problem. Everything I did needed to serve a purpose and get me closer to a goal. If I wasn’t working towards something, what was the point? I found it difficult to balance my ambition and a desire for a softer life. A life where I know how to be easygoing, take care of myself, and pause to soak it all in. A life where I have dreams and goals, but also the mindfulness to make peace and comfort a priority.
I’ve gotten so used to keeping my brain “on” that when I finally had the chance to turn it off, I realized I didn’t know how. It was a challenge to even allow myself to get into it. It felt like slacking off—like I was abandoning a dream, betraying my future self by straying from plans and not preparing for what else I have planned.
But what I keep trying to remind myself is this: This is my life, too, and I should know how to enjoy it.
There’s a life outside the grind of work and crossing things off a to-do list. There are moments I’m allowed to sit with and enjoy. I can set aside time for myself without a goal in mind, just because I enjoy it. I can put time and money into hobbies without needing to justify them. I can live in and enjoy the moment without having to answer, “How does this get me closer to my to-do list?”
Maybe it’s not about abandoning my list altogether. I am, after all, still a planner at heart. I’m ambitious and driven, and I don’t think that’s going to change. I can be ambitious about my career, but also about building a life I enjoy and love. I can be ambitious about adventure and make time for things that are fun and “unnecessary.” I can let myself enjoy what I’ve worked hard for, without immediately questioning if I should save it for whatever comes next.
For so long, I’ve run on the idea that the goal was to get to the next thing. To tick the box, cross out the line, and start working on what comes next. Graduate. Work. Masters. Work abroad. Get engaged. Get married. Prepare.
Now I’m here, and maybe the next goal isn’t a milestone, but learning how to stay and exist in a period of my life where I don’t need to improve, achieve, or prepare for what’s next. To own this time as truly mine, and to enjoy what I’ve worked so hard for.
Maybe a soft life for someone like me isn’t so much about being less ambitious, but about being ambitious enough to enjoy the life I’ve worked so hard to build.
Generations appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
