“Thoreau’s goal wasn’t to avoid work, but to use work to achieve the life he wanted…. Thoreau’s goal wasn’t even to become a rich or famous writer. He defined success by the doing, not the outcome, even when it meant he had to be a writer-surveyor or a writer-handyman. Even Emerson, his mentor and occasional frenemy, chided him for this apparent lack of drive.
“But Thoreau was onto something. Ambition can either compel us toward self-improvement or toward self-neglect, depending on what drives it. We must remember what motivates us, and not to confuse that with what pleases our bosses or thrills the masses.”
