Thank you for this very interesting ask! I’d never really reflected on this, but my gut feeling is that ambition has done more ill than good in the world. If I were sitting my high school philosophy exam and drew this topic, my opening quote would be Minerva from the opera Daphné "How you torment yourselves, ambitious mortals—desperate and frantic—enemies of leisure, enemies of yourselves." But I like your water imagery—maybe you naturally have tides carrying you towards higher goals while I am stagnant water—the word stagnant comes from stagnum, a pond, I don’t mind it. Maybe some people are seas and enjoy tidal rising while others are ponds and enjoy pondering.

If I had to visualise a soft and gentle ambition I wouldn't picture a slow tide rising towards something greater but rather wavelets, setting small projects for myself that don’t disrupt too much (or for too long) the at-rest state that I am content with. (If I were not content with my at-rest state, then yes, a stronger, 'tidal' ambition would help change this situation, but even then I would tend to perceive this ambition as a necessary evil...) One such project could be learning a new language, which possibly fits your definition of a gentler kind of ambition ‘within ourselves’—but I don't know if I would see this as striving to be my best self. Am I a better version of myself if I spend my free time learning a language rather than doing a stagnant activity that doesn't rise towards a goal (like watching my animals live their lives, which makes me happy)?

If someone has an ambitious goal, say, writing a book, that they feel will bring something of value to themselves and/or the world at large, and the idle activities that take time away from this goal are of comparatively less value to them (or inherently less joyful or healthy—insert critique of smartphones here) then I would say ambition is a positive force that helps them better their life and their self. But I deeply value idleness and fruitless pursuits, I think they often bring us great joy and do no harm, and trying to infuse them with more ambition in the name of self-improvement can ruin them (like trying to master a hobby in order to monetise it).

I've been thinking about it (yes, in the years since I got this message) and I think there was just a dissonance in the way we used words maybe, because that second anon equated learning new things with "bettering ourselves" and I don't, not really. What younger-me was trying to articulate in this post was that my unease with the idea of bettering yourself isn't a rejection of growth, just a rejection of a hierarchical view of growth. I was opposing the value system that says your self-worth increases the more you learn, or create, or master, or produce. It creates this kind of implicit ladder people imagine themselves climbing to ascend towards their "best self" and it links selfhood to motion, and entrenches the idea that goodness must be earned by doing. As a naturally idle person I've always resisted this idea.

To me saying that learning new skills =/= bettering yourself is just about unhooking curiosity or passion from self-surpassing. Because the latter notion just makes you an enemy of your present and past self, that you have to outperform, in a way? and this results in viewing idleness and rest and contented self-acceptance with suspicion—as laziness and complacency and lack of admirable striving. I understand that it's also a matter of temperament and not everyone will share my distrust of action as a path to meaning and worth, but as far as I'm concerned—to go back to my clumsy watery metaphor, a pond doesn't get better by getting wider or different, it gets richer by accumulating silt and sediment. Its value comes from what time deposits into it and how this settles within it, not how much it expands or changes. It's about self-enrichment through stillness and receptivity and reflection, not self-improvement via the surmounting of an insufficient present self and striving towards a better self. I think the first framing can give you a more gentle attitude to your present self. Selfhood should be a friendly continuity rather than a stressful contest—your future self isn't a better you, just a more richly-sedimented and calmly-settled you (hopefully).

𝙹𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝟷, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟹 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟶-𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟹