No More Wasted Talent
Yesterday, we covered Bregman’s first two vocational categories: 1) bullshit jobs, and 2) wasted talent. Let’s tackle the remaining two.
His third category describes jobs that are idealistic, but not particularly ambitious. These are the people who want their values to be known – and share them regularly – but they fall short on impact. Think: online activists. In Bregman’s words:
“The trouble with idealists who lack ambition is they tend to prize awareness more than action. Words and intentions take precedence over deeds and consequences, and what something’s really like gets eclipsed by what it feels like.”
Even if your job doesn’t fit in this third category, I think it is worth noting that we can all fall into this performative pattern from time-to-time. Remember: impact over intention.
The last category (and the only good one) in Bregman’s view is called Moral Ambition. In brief, these people combine their ambition and desire for impact with a generous dose of idealism. Bregman uses the rest of the book to build out a profile and playbook for the morally ambitious, with many inspiring stories and instructive examples. It’s all about making the world a wildly better place as we discussed yesterday.
To be clear, this last path is not easy – and success is certainly not guaranteed. But pursuing morally ambitious causes is better than continuing our mind-numbing, pointless and even harmful jobs. As Bregman puts it:
“Because so many others waste their talents, people with moral ambition can make a world of difference.”
It is a gift to read something that hits you right between the eyes. I left life in academia because I was frustrated with my lack of impact. Now I’m out on my own, figuring out what my impact might look like now.
Success doesn’t feel guaranteed, but I can say that I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to choose my pursuits. May more of those pursuits be of the morally ambitious variety.
Inspiration
Bregman, M. (2025). Moral Ambition. Trans. Erica Moore. New York: Little, Brown & Co. (Chapter 1)