The Age of Anti-Ambition
“So the numbers are bad enough. But then there’s the way the hard facts of the economy interact with our emotions. Consider this theory: that the current office ennui was simply the inevitable backlash to the punishing culture of the previous decade’s #ThankGodItsMonday culture. And furthermore, sometime around the rise of #MeToo (and after Donald Trump’s election), ambition began to seem like a mug’s game. The enormous personal costs of getting to the top became clear, and the potential warping effects of being in charge also did.”
I could've pulled a lot of different quotes from this article because I found it all really interesting and was nodding along a lot. But what I find the most interesting about it was both how complicated what's going on in the labor market right now is and how difficult that is to put into words. So many folks are unhappy with work right now and I can't help but wonder if maybe it's because work has never been that great. The disruption of a stressful, global event has been the catalyst for many folks to figure out what is important to them and work has fallen way down the list.