I’m not ambitious. It’s one of those things that I’ll always admit with the tiniest bit of shame-it feels like a flaw or a shortcoming that I ought to keep hidden. My lack of aspiration definitely seems like it should be kept secret.
Ever since I was young, people would tell me about my potential. Apparently it was something that I had a lot of and something that I was somehow duty bound to live up to. So now when confessing that I’m really not interested in having a career, I can almost sense the disappointment of those around me.
Career counselling in school made me feel so stressed that I didn’t have an answer to any of the questions that they were asking. Every time I had to go to the Job Centre I was reduced to tears, particularly bad was when the woman who was supposed to be helping me find gainful employment told me that my CV was “very angry”. Recently at a job interview I was asked about ‘where I saw myself in five years’ I answered honestly that I really didn’t ever plan that far ahead-I didn’t get that job.
“More women in CEO positions isn’t exactly smashing the ceiling-it’s just Capitalism: this time with more women.”
Whilst I was unemployed, my sole ambition was to become employed; I wanted a job with a regular paycheck and menial tasks that I was duty bound to complete, not a career. Fortunately I found that job-I work in retail, I help customers, I dress mannequins, I smile, I put money in the till and I enjoy it.
I do still occasionally feel inadequate. I joke that I’m making such excellent use of my degree or apologise when people ask what I do for a living and mutter “oh I’m just a shop girl, I only work in retail.” Even so, when somebody I know comes into the shop and asks if I’m working here for a “fill in job” I feel hurt, I get defensive; I am unsure why exactly this can’t be my “real job”, why I am obliged to measure my success through the numbers on my paycheck. Can I not be an interesting and worthwhile person who is entirely satisfied and proud of myself whilst earning the minimum wage?
“For me, there is joy in coming to terms with my own mediocrity.”
As far as I am concerned a female victory isn’t automatically a feminist one and more women in CEO positions isn’t exactly smashing the glass ceiling - it’s just Capitalism: this time with more women. I feel left behind when Sheryl Sandberg asks me to Lean In or Sophia Amoruso assures me that I too can be a #GirlBoss. I can’t understand why people are so keen to talk about the women running their own companies but neglect to mention all or the domestic and emotional labour typically performed by women that gets consistently overlooked and devalued. Who I admire most are the young women I see defining success on their own terms and encouraging others to do the same, I just cannot relate to women at the top of the career heap telling me that I could join them there.
However it would be equally disingenuous to present my personal lack of motivation to pursue a career as some sort of political position when in reality it’s largely because for me it is far more important to be content than it is to be exceptional. For me, there is joy in coming to terms with my own mediocrity, realising that I can be important and successful and important in so many other ways only makes me feel optimistic.
