I was standing on a beach in Bermuda in my butterfly swim briefs when my sisters broke the news via text: Dolly Parton had passed away at the age of 80.
Butterflies had always been a symbol for Dolly, and for my 40th birthday, my sisters had given me a Dolly “Cup of Ambition” mug, a nod to her iconic song “9 to 5.”
There was something especially poignant about learning of Dolly’s death the same week I’m sharing my conversation with Amil Niazi, author of Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir. Ambition can have such a hold on us.
But what if this school year, and this season of our lives, didn’t have to be about doing more? What if it could simply be… good enough?
In this episode I talk with Amil about ambition, parenting, back-to-school pressure, and what happens when we stop believing that more is always better. Dolly had her own definition of ambition. Amil is asking us to reconsider ours.
Maybe instead of constantly asking, “What’s next?” we can occasionally look around at the life we already have and say: “This is good enough.”
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More from Amil Niazi:📚 Order Life After Ambition: A Good Enough Memoir🗞️ Amil’s Column for The Cut and on Substack📸 Follow along with Amil on IG
More from Tidy Dad:📚 Order Tidy Up Your Life (available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook)🗞️ Subscribe to The Tidy Times on Substack📸 Follow along on IG: Tidy Dad
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