Does Being Grateful Make You Less Ambitious?

by Sopho Kharazi

I was going to make a post about feeling grateful but less ambitious. I wrote it in 2025. However, I found a draft in my archives from 2024, which talks about the same issue in a different form. And now it is so interesting to me to have those two pieces next to each other with one year difference, showing the progress, I have been experiencing. So, instead of doing two different posts, I thought I would publish them together. Enjoy.

Year 2024

I cannot help but wonder, maybe this life is not about constantly finding new experiences? Maybe it is actually all about walking on the circle? Going back to where we were in the past but responding to the same situations differently? So that those different responses to spiteful events bring us to the different conclusions which become new beginnings? Why does it feel so wrong to be static and to be back at where we were, if nothing tragic has ever happened in our lives? At the end of the day, it is all about maturing and responding to things according to our maturity level. For the first time in my life, I have been experiencing the feeling that I am back where I have been. I have always been moving forward, whether it was academic, professional or romantic journey. It was all new, always novel. And when I thought that I am entering new phase of my life, being freshly graduated from my masters, finally settling down in one place long-term, having full-time job, and being in a relationship, I suddenly found myself back at it again: looking for a new job for a change, figuring out my next steps, and being single. I want to do so much and at the same time, I feel as if I am doing so little. And then there are moments when I realize that I am not even 30.

I was sitting in a café. Reading my book, enjoying filter coffee, and observing people. Observing people is my favorite activity. I like spying on their body-language, feeling the energy around them, and transforming them into the protagonists of my novel. My character that day was a 50-years old lady whose name I decided to be Veronica. Veronica was wearing dark brown trench coat with even darker brown cotton polo collar and cuffs. A white t-shirt was tucked in her dark woolen pants. Her matt black moccasins looked polished while her sunglasses were classy, chic, and expensive. She herself looked classy, chic, and expensive, even though her outfit was plain but very neat. What caught my attention was the fact that she was reading a newspaper. Very few people nowadays read newspaper in print, unless you are sixty or above.

First, I thought she is not Italian because the coffee place I usually go to is not necessarily a place where a lot of Italians hang out. God forbid they drink something else then Moka coffee. It is more a Japandi style coffeeshop, where people order Roasted Columbian beans. Also, she was alone which is very unusual for Italians. But then I thought, if she is reading Corriere della Sera, maybe she is local. Anyways, I started wondering about her life. What was her youth like? How did she reach the place she is at now? Was she born in a privileged family or did she have to get it all on her own? How was her love life going? Was anyone waiting for her at home to share a bottle of wine and a bowl of pasta? Was she religiously making love every Sunday to her partner or was she a single woman? If she was single, did she enjoy her single life or did she wish she was dating anybody? What was her career? One could call me curious, but in Georgian we have this really good word ცნობისმოყვარე (cnobismokvare) that literally translates as a lover of knowing. So, let’s say I like making love to knowledge, I love getting to know details of strangers’ lives because you never know what you can learn from someone’s personal discoveries or experiences. I also love swallowing chunks of new knowledge about anything, even if it is random fact that will occupy my brain storage without any intention to be used in practical life.

So back to Veronica. In my imagination, Veronica is looking for the announcement in the newspaper to find a dogwalker for her 9 years-old dog who potentially has ADHD and needs to be walked out 5 times a day which she is not eager to do herself. I wonder if she is wearing SPF as she is sitting right under the sun, but her skin is very pale and well taken care of. Veronica has an angry facial expression with her eyebrows scrunched to the point that they give birth to a straight line above her nose – a wrinkle which probably be the first one I will get as I also have that habit. So, as I and Veronica share this habitually expressive face, I do not rush to label her as an angry lady. It is just her face, otherwise, she must be a nice person, who does Pilates three times a week with her girlfriends. Veronica has a nice career, for some reason I see her being a gynecologist in one of those fancy hospitals on Moscova, with an assistant and a big luminous office all to herself which she has decorated with plants. She lives in a 120 square meter illuminated apartment somewhere near Corso Sempione with her heterosexual partner who owns his consultancy company. Their child is studying abroad in university, so they are enjoying life on their own, falling in love with each other di nuovo. They have a dog, a cat, and traditional Wednesday evening dinners with friends hosted at their place because Veronica does not work on Wednesdays and loves to cook in her big kitchen while listening to soft jazz and sipping some dirtyyyy Martini. Over the years, her partner’s collection of vinyl has grown to the point that they fill in the wall shelves of their living room. Her apartment is very cozy, full of plants and lamps with doomed lights. It is both stylish and comfortable with big windows and high ceilings. It always smells nice there because she loves burning incents. She seems very chill to me, not dramatic, minding her own business and having this inner peace of a person who has all her shit in order, who made it in life, who lives the way she wants to, who can emotionally, physically, and financially afford to live the way she wants to.

The reason I started talking about Veronica is because she gave me an impression of the woman who does not have much happening in her life, but she seems to be enjoying her daily routine filled with small moments such as sitting under the sun and sipping aromatic coffee on her own. Her vibe surrounded me with the smell of life I want to have. Interestingly, that whole scenario made me remember that even though I want to be Veronica, right now, I am where I probably must be and all that I fantasize about will eventually come true. And I cannot miss out on my entire life by only focusing to be in my 50s and have it all together. Veronica reminded that I should fall in love with my routine, because otherwise life will become miserable. It is so interesting that only at 28, I am learning to enjoy stability, to love my day-to-day life, and to live without the idea that “on XX day, I have to move and start all over.”

Year 2025

I think I have become Stoic without realizing it. I have not really been exposed much to Stoicism as it never fell in the basket of my interests. My fascination was taken more by theory of existentialism, metaphysical realism, and Hegelian house of philosophy. However, right now, I find myself in a very interesting phase – the phase of contentment with and gratitude for what I have.

Let’s start from the beginning. I always put a lot of pressure on myself to satisfy my never-ending ambitions. This behavioral pattern can be observed from two correlated perspectives. First, it can be analyzed as a coping mechanism to fill the void with external achievements. Void of what? Depends on certain periods of life. However, the pattern has always been the same – after reaching a certain goal, my happiness would last only for few hours or days, and then I would feel the need to achieve something new. Second, it was my way to constantly grow and develop, thinking that pushing myself out of the comfort zone was the method. However, looking back I see that I was not pushing myself out of the comfort zone. I was pushing myself out of the uncomfortable zone swallowed by void to find peace and comfort. For example, I was living in Tbilisi for few years. Materialistically, my life was heaps better than now – I had high salary, I lived in my own nice apartment, I was surrounded with friends and family. Nevertheless, I remember those being one of the most miserable years of my life. So, when I applied to the two-years master’s program abroad, consciously I thought I was pushing myself out of the comfort zone while subconsciously, I was running away from the discomfort of my everyday life.

Where am I now? I am finally at peace, living slow life in a big city, and feeling grateful every single day. Even though I share an apartment, have mediocre salary, and do not enjoy luxuries I had in Tbilisi, I am the most comfortable I have ever felt. And this is strange to me, especially, because I have never felt gratitude on daily basis – if something, I think I was the most ungrateful person I have ever met. To give you an example, in the mornings, when I sit on my small balcony and sip coffee, I look at the trees and feel grateful for where I live, how I live, and where I am at in life. Do not get the wrong idea, my daily routine is deadly boring, maybe for some people even depressing. I work mostly from home, and sometimes there are days when I do not interact with a single soul. But I still find joy from doing groceries, cooking, watering my plants, reading, going on evening walks, and getting my shoes repaired by Stefano. In the past, I would see my current daily routine as my biggest nightmare. But now, it is the routine I am grateful for – I realized how important it is to love boring life after watching the movie Perfect Days, so highly recommend.

Of course, though, there is but. But I start to wonder from time to time, has gratitude made me less ambitious? On the one hand, I am feeling that I have finally allowed myself to enjoy the fruits of my hard work, as I have been hustling non-stop since middle school. On the other hand, I am scared that my ambition of becoming someone bigger has abandoned me. I watched a reel on Instagram – a sketched conversation with the therapist, where the patient complains about losing ambition due to feeling comfortable. Throughout the conversation, we realize the paradox – the main reason of the patient’s ambition was to build a comfortable life. I, and surely many of you, can resonate with the patient. Of course, I still want to achieve more in life, experience more, and earn more but this urge is not that urgent anymore. And this is where the cycle begins. Why am I not in urgency to make life even better? Will this urgency never come back? Is me saying all those things constitute a self-defense mechanism because, I have not secured a single job interview in a year? Does this calmness and trust in life represent a true denial of the fact that I have not felt successful in the past one year? To be honest, no. Somehow, internally, this does not feel neither fake nor self-defensive. It feels healing.

Only today, I have realized that everything I have been describing so far is the product of my healing journey. It does not mean that I feel self-complacent. There is still a lot of work to do, but I have healed some internal issues that surprisingly even to me, in the most natural way possible, grounded the feelings of gratitude and content in me. Apparently, there are two forms of gratitude: gratitude directed towards people in your life and awareness gratitude directed to your life. In Stoicism, it is believed that once you feel both, desire for more becomes unimportant. Don’t get me wrong, I still want those 900 EUR Margiela Tabi shoes, but I do not feel bad by the fact that right now I cannot afford them. Piano, piano.

Finally, I just want to add one more thing. I do not try to create an image of someone who is never anxious because it is not true. However, I have finally reached a point where I do not allow anything external to define me. In the past, I found my identity in my job – feeling proud of where I worked, tying my self-worth to titles and roles. The thought of losing my job felt like losing myself, because I could not imagine who I was without it. But now, what I fear losing is not a job or a title but my peace of mind and sense of gratitude. Of course, those feelings are supported by the financial stability my job provides, which motivates me to work hard and remain responsible. But the key difference is that my job is no longer the source of my identity or happiness. Instead, it is a tool I use to sustain a life grounded in appreciation and inner calm. That is why I protect my peace and gratitude so fiercely, because it took me 29 years to realize that this is the true foundations of my well-being.