Ambition Monster: A Memoir

Mystics associate blue jays with transformative change.

“You know it’s not worse for you, right,” she says, staring at me in a way that suggests empathy but also shut-the-fuck-up tough love. “We all feel like this. None of us thought it would be this way.” She gestures inside the house to her partner, who’s sitting in our new tweed midcentury chair and holding an Aperol spritz. “It’s not what any of us

Over-immersion in work acts as a kind of antianxiety, a controlled space to fully submerge in and calm an unquiet mind. Workaholics like these develop a dependency on their own competence, an outsize need to be efficient, productive, to do things “right.”

According to the Workaholics Anonymous handbook, those with a predisposition to overwork often grow up in chaotic homes. In adulthood, hyperfocus on their careers creates a sense of control in their lives, allowing them to disassociate from painful memories, from grief, from a poor or weak sense of self. These types of workaholics unconsciously, re

It’s an immense privilege to consider work as anything beyond basic survival. A life dedicated to creating art of any kind is, for most of us, precarious and unsustainable. A modern-day marriage of two artists is as financially sturdy as sand. I knew intellectually that I wanted to be a mother more than I needed to be a writer. I just hadn’t calcul

On the subway home, I begin to think of the traditional roles of masculinity and femininity. They’d always seemed so boring and restrictive, but when they’re removed there’s no clear delineation of how to balance all the adult tasks, no map to follow. My husband is not expected to bring home the bigger paycheck, or fix the kitchen sink. But I am la