What does ambition mean in a post-pandemic world?

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing that, even amid a looming recession, no one wants to work anymore. But the Great Resignation that followed the pandemic wasn’t about people not wanting to work. As Amil Niazi wrote in New York magazine earlier this year: “People want to work—we have to—but many of us are no longer willing to trade our well-being for a chance to claw at the decaying American Dream. There’s a renewed focus on relationships, community, and the slow beat of life outside the gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss ethos.”

That beat of the re-prioritization of life rang throughout all of our interviews for our recent series, Ambition Diaries. For some of the women we interviewed, the process of evaluating what’s important and defining what makes for meaningful work started in the years before the pandemic. For others, the forced slow down or upending of their workplace realities gave them the opportunity to change course—in some cases incrementally, and in others, dramatically.  

The pandemic shifted a lot about work, but for office workers one of the biggest shifts was where work was done. Pre-pandemic, only around 6% of workers in the U.S. worked from home; that changed to 37% in the spring of 2020, and now, more than two years later, one in four Americans still work remotely full time (and even more are hybrid).

For many people, the pandemic has been about survival, both physically and financially, amid job losses and the squeeze of rising costs. But for others it has meant a reevaluation of what really matters. When confronted with mortality, it becomes difficult to set a high priority on climbing the traditional career ladder.

Janelle Aberle, from Seattle, talked to her daughter Kylie about how the pandemic forced her to reevaluate her career and the traditional view of success.

Janelle said, “When the pandemic hit, it was the first time in my life that I realized that okay, this is a fixed timeframe. At some point we’re all going to die. The pandemic just reinforced for me the urgency to do what it takes to do the things that helped me feel that sense that I felt when I was a kid that fit myself to be a maximum service to other people.”

While the pandemic prompted Janelle to make a career change, her daughter, who is 27, has given herself permission to be happy where she is. She said, “I never want to be complacent, of course, but I think that oftentimes, people think it’s either one or the other. You’re either complacent and not ambitious or you’re ambitious and you need to get out of your current situation. What if it’s okay to just be in that middle zone for a little bit?”

While the pandemic was the catalyst for many people to make a change in their work lives, others were already on that path. Damita Polanco and her daughter Francesca both left corporate jobs in Human Resources to pursue their passions in birth work and organic farming, respectively. For them, building their current careers was all about leaving behind expectations and being true to themselves. 

Damita shared how she had been placing importance on the wrong things: “I was so indoctrinated in the nonsense and the BS of capitalism and just all of the garbage. [I believed that] you have to be this box-checker and you have to do this, and you have to do that. I remember I was working myself to the point that I was sick.”

Damita was laid off and forced to rethink the path she had been on. In that process, she inspired her daughter to do her own reevaluating. Francesca said, “After your job let you go, and you were following this voice. That empowered me to dream, as well. I think little me would be really happy for 30-year-old me.”

For more Ambition Diaries including individual photos, interviews, and audio clips from all seven mothers and daughters, visit fastcompany.com/ambition-diaries

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