doing enough

The above photo is not a stock image but one I took as a storm front rolled in. The summer of 2025 I found myself often finding solace in nature walks. It was a way to simultaneously live in the moment while escaping the larger problems of my life. I started creating animated ambiences based on these natural environments, both real and imagined. I found I needed shorter-term projects to complete while working on the longer-term Laylian the Alien, just to keep my spirits up. I also wanted to build an audience online, and I thought it would be a good idea to regularly put artistic work out as signs of life. I wanted to challenge myself to produce consistently instead of operating in fits and spurts, but that proved difficult. I started reflecting on my relationship with ambition, how it can both benefit and hurt me. I couldn’t decide whether I was expecting too much or too little of myself. I needed some advice, so I wrote this letter.

-Brynn

When have I done enough?

Dear Striving Creator,

You will never have done enough. That’s the tricky thing about ambition. Enough is always just beyond where you currently are.

This can be very disheartening to learn. Why travel when you’ll never actually arrive? Why chase a quarry that can never actually be caught?

I’m not saying it’s impossible to reach your goals. It’s entirely possible. What I’m saying is that by the time you accomplish them, they may not feel as satisfying as you once thought they would. Instead, you will have spotted something bigger and better in front of you. And you will be eager to go after it.

This is the nature of ambition. It is both a blessing and a curse.

When you chase ambition, you are in a perpetual state of running.

The question becomes: why are you running?

Is it because you are chasing wonderful things? Things that make your day better just by having them within your sights?

Or are you, in fact, the one being chased?

It’s fairly easy to find out. Stop pursuing your ambition for a bit. Set up camp. Don’t worry about losing the trail—ambition won’t leave you in the dust. It can’t. It wants to be chased. Ambition will hang around your periphery, hoping to tempt you back into the game. You can go back, when you choose to. But only when you choose to. You control the hunt.

If, on the other hand, you find you can’t stop to make camp—not even for a little bit—then you know.

You’re the one being chased.

This is a difficult notion to come to terms with. We like to think of ourselves as the ones in control, the ones setting our own goals and running to achieve them. It is much more difficult to think of ourselves as the ones reacting to unfortunate circumstances and running to escape them.

Please know, simply forcing yourself to stop and face whatever is chasing you is probably not the best idea. Whatever you’re running from is probably an excellent thing to run from. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t be running. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re a coward. You’re not. You’re just trying to deal with the situation as best you can.

What you need to do is run towards a place that can offer you help. Someone or somewhere or something that will give you an advantage over what’s chasing you. So, when you do eventually turn around and face the thing behind you, you will be stronger and bolder and more clever than it is. It won’t consume you because you’ve put yourself in a place where you can’t be consumed.

All of this is to say, don’t use your ambition as an excuse to distract you from your plight. If you do, you will never stop running. You will never find peace. Nothing will ever be enough.

The way ambition works—when it’s the healthy kind, not the false kind where something’s chasing you—is it spurs you to live a bigger and more authentic life than you would have if you hadn’t followed it.

You will want to run because it feels good to run.

You will run because it truly seems like the best thing to do at the time.

If you don’t feel that ambition, then please—don’t run. Keeping your current surroundings is a wonderful thing to do. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. They’re just unhappy they ignored their own call to run. There is no way to ignore the call if you didn’t receive it to begin with.

When it comes to ambition, it is the power of choice and decision that is important. Oddly, because nothing is ever enough, everything can be enough, simply because you decide it is.

At any point, you can stop running.

You can look around and say, “Enough. This is enough.” And you can set up camp for the day. There doesn’t have to be anything special about this place. Maybe you reached an impressive milestone, or maybe you didn’t. It is enough simply because you have decided to treat is as such. Perhaps tomorrow you run after your ambition once more. Or perhaps you stay exactly where you are. It is completely your choice. It is your choice that makes it enough.

It may take work to get to the point where you can make that choice. You cannot make it if something is chasing you. You cannot make it if you feel pressured to run. You can only make it if you are well and truly free to follow what feels best for you. You are then free to change your mind at any time.

In this sense, to answer your original question, you will have done enough only once you have the ability to choose what is enough. You will have arrived only once you have accepted where you are. 

I wish you well. May your ambition enrich your life. May you find yourself in wonderful places.

Love, 

A Fellow Creator